KAMPALA — President Yoweri Museveni says that despite the many challenges, Uganda is still standing and coping towards a self sustaining economy.
Delivering his last State of the Nation address via video link for his term, the president said this is due to the wise account of some of the few of the ideas that the country managed to implement, “in spite of the endless opposition that we always face”.
“We have built a strong Army; we have built a powerful LC system, the fact that it is not well facilitated financially notwithstanding; we have surplus electricity on account of the correct prioritization, with Parliament support, in 2006; we have a good road network of tarmac roads, totaling 5,111kms; on account of our correct agricultural policy, we have a lot of agricultural products for foods security and for commerce in the form of: bananas, maize, beans, irish-potatoes, cassava, coffee, tea, cotton, cocoa, milk, beef, fish, poultry, eggs, flowers, etc., etc,” the President.
He adds that apart from feeding Ugandans, these agricultural products end up by earning for us US$2,005million (49% of total merchandise exports) for the year 2019.
He says the agriculture is, “not only feeding us almost 100%, but also earning dollars for us of the magnitude of US$ 2.005billion.”
He says in spite of the obstructions by the neo-colonial actors and foreign backers, Uganda is able to stand up today and weather the storm because of the correct actions his government took.
Much as the vulnerable portions of the economy, have collapsed, he adds, the real economy is standing up and expanding, especially in agriculture and industry.
“If we take industry, in just the last few months of this crisis of the virus, by March, 2020, we had only two factories, known as Saraya East Africa Limited and the Luwero Industries making sanitizers. We now have 107 factories. By March, 2020, there was not even one factory making masks in Uganda and we were told that there was a global shortage, etc. I told some of our factories including Nytil, UIRI, NEC, etc., to make these masks. We now have factories making the masks ? we received requests from 61 factories but, only 10 have been certified. There was a big shortage of PPEs in the World. I told some of our factories, including Mulwana, to solve this problem. They have risen to the occasion and they are producing the PPEs,” the President added.
