Don’t give money to voters- Museveni

Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda (R) handing president Museveni the NRM party manifesto. Courtesy photo

National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential flag bearer Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has urged party supporters to desist from bribing voters in the upcoming elections as a strategy to secure genuine victory.
While launching his 2016-2021 manifesto in Kampala on Friday, Mr Museveni said being voted into power is not a favour by the electorates.
“Why do you have to give money to voters? Who pays those who go to church? You have created a situation as if you’re employees of the population. They take you as if they have done you a favour by putting you in power. The relationship between voters and leaders should be in such a way that you move together,” he said.

According to him, leaders are delegates of the electorates.
“If you are a leader, you have been sent to go and look for development. In any case, you are the one supposed to be paid since you have made a number of sacrifices like leaving your children, your family, etc. But if you send bad leaders, you may create a situation where this peace, which you are enjoying now, is disturbed. Uganda is peaceful now because of the NRM ideology,” he added.
He also cautioned NRM flag bearers to desist from telling lies to their electorates.
“When you go to talk to the people, don’t tell them what is not in our (NRM) manifesto. Why do you have to tell them lies yet you (as individuals) don’t have the capacity to implement it (manifesto),” he said.

Mr Museveni further noted that the 2016-2021 manifesto lists 12 priority areas for the NRM party over the next five years, one of which is value addition on exports, especially agricultural products.
“We import a lot of useless things like hair (wigs), wine. This is one of the reasons why our shilling is doing badly. Let us now export more value. What I’m putting on today is our cotton from Fine Spinners. It's good young people are now part of NRM leadership, maybe they will listen better,” he said.

He noted that Uganda spends $7billion on imports as compared to only $5billion it earns from exports.
He attributed lack of jobs and high unemployment rate in the country to high export of raw materials.
“I persuaded NesCafe to come to Uganda. They refused, saying they already have a factory in London. We are soon getting a factory of processing coffee here,” he added.
Prime minster Dr Ruhakana Rugunda who addressed the gathering before Mr Museveni, had said the manifesto is a compendium that details what has been done and what is going to be done by NRM.

Check Saturday Monitor for full analysis of NRM manifesto.