Museveni vows to punish saboteurs of govt projects

The national chairperson of the ruling NRM party, President Museveni, yesterday outlined achievements ushered in by his government as he listed seven problems he is set to tackle with immediate effect.
The President told more than 10,000 delegates that he will deal with government officials delaying the implementation of development projects.

He listed the other problems government officials had failed to implement as the botched Prosperity-for- All Programme, fighting corruption, failure by the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) to work on murram roads.
Commenting about the delayed private sector investments by government officials, Mr Museveni said frustrating investors is a “big mistake” as he warned to bring to book whoever is responsible.

The President made reference to the 10-year Kalangala palm oil project, which he said has changed people’s lives “yet it was being frustrated”.

“In Canada, it takes only two days to register a new investment. In Singapore it is also two days .Here in Uganda it is 32 days allegedly. In reality, however, sometimes it takes four years or more,” he said. He said it was “treason” for government officials to delay such projects that have created jobs for the youth and incomes to the homesteads.

With an annual budget of Shs485.6 billion invested in poverty alleviation projects and another Shs203 billion for Naads, the President noted that the money has not gone to poor families that the government intended to help.

Explaining why he has allowed the army to monitor Naads, the President noted that despite of the billions invested in the project, it had not benefitted the poor. “In the last three seasons, the UPDF have supervised the planting of 26.4 million seedlings coffee, 389,824 seedlings of mangoes, 846,756 seedlings of oranges, 2.2 million seedlings of tea, 2,0008 tonnes of maize, among others,” he said. He faulted UNRA on what he called their claims that Shs180 billion is not enough to maintain old tarmac and murram roads.

‘This is turning out not to be true because local governments receive Shs142 billion for the maintenance of their roads. Their roads are better than UNRA roads,” Mr Museveni said, as he announced he would buy 1,000 pieces of good road and other earth moving equipment from Japan.

He warned on commercialisation of politics and said people have failed to comprehend their roles. The other problems he mentioned included political disorientation and the disconnection between the party branches and the headquarters.