Inside Museveni’s address: Hits, misses

Standard Gauge Railway
2019: The modernization of the railway system by building the Standard Gauge Railway will bring down the cost of transport per 40ft container from US$3,456 by road to US$1,800 per container using the Standard Gauge Railway. Even by repairing the old metre gauge railway, the cost of transport goes down to US$2,016.”
Government continues to fast track the development of the Standard Gauge Railway with the expectation to improve the quality of the transport system and provide a globally competitive quality service.”

2015: Therefore, in order to make our economy competitive, we have decided, together with Kenya, to build a modern Standard Gauge Railway.
The Government of China agreed to help us. That will reduce the cost of transporting goods to US$1,650 per container.
2014: We are adding the development of the Standard Gauge Railway from Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali-Juba, working with Kenyan brothers, brothers from South Sudan and from Rwanda as well as our Chinese friends.
Low costs of production will attract more manufacturers and service companies.

Corruption
2019: The tempo of Uganda’s development is, however, interfered with by corrupt public servants and political actors. That is why corruption is now public enemy no. 1.
Government has put in place a number of strategies to eliminate corruption and promote the principle of zero tolerance to corruption.
These strategies are intended to create an even more conducive environment for good governance and the rule of law to flourish in Uganda.
2018: I cannot fail to talk about mercenarism of the public officials and corruption of some of them.
The mercenarism interferes with the patriotic attitude of the freedom fighters. People expect money for every little task. We could not have liberated this country if we did not have a high degree of altruism.

This attitude of altruism must come back.
As for the corrupt officials, I would like to inform the public that their only element of security is the acquaissance of the public by not reporting these criminals.
Otherwise, there is no criminal we cannot handle. Report any corruption you come across to this unit (State House anticorruption unit].
2016: The fourth factor that is crucial that we must expunge is corruption among the political leaders and the public servants.
I have quite a bit of information about leaders who ask for bribes from foreigners and locals who invest here.
During the campaign, I compared these to rats who eat stored millet. These rats must be exterminated. They damage our future.
2015: The only residual nuisance is ordinary crime such as murder, corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, etc.

Security
2019: The NRM Government remains committed to ensuring a secure and peaceful Uganda. This has come about by promoting and upholding patriotism, democracy and good governance as core values for National socio-economic transformation.
Significant focus has been placed on professionalising and modernizing the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and building the Uganda Police Force (UPF) capabilities.
2018: On the side of stability, Uganda had a lot of challenges even after the NRM took power.
Eventually, by 2007, the UPDF totally defeated Kony, ADF, the other rebel groups and disarmed the Karimojong.
2017: The Police backed by the UPDF, when there is good planning, can guarantee security against any lawless or terrorist actions.
2015: However, the UPDF has ensured total peace in the whole country by defeating Kony, defeating ADF and disarming the Karimojong warriors. There is now total peace in the whole length and breadth of Uganda.

Agriculture
2019: Industrialisation to promote exports using primarily agriculture as the base; this includes industrialisation along the agricultural value chain, light manufacturing and processing our minerals into finished products; and further diversification of the manufacturing sector to increase exports.
Increasing production and productivity in the agricultural sector by investing in quality inputs, extension services, storage facilities, access to markets by improving standards and quality of agro-processing.
Government is also boosting the capital base of UDB to be able to lend to agriculture as well as small scale industry.

In addition, government is implementing targeted interventions in the Coffee Sector (Coffee Roadmap 2020), Tea and fruit processing e.g. the Soroti Fruit Factory and supporting agricultural zoning and out grower model around the nucleus farmers. We are also working on stabilising agriculture through irrigation.
2018: we have or will soon have the necessary boosters for agriculture. These will be the use of fertilisers by more Ugandan farmers than at present and the farmers will use more irrigation.
In the coming financial year, the Government will work on some irrigation schemes using the government budget.
2017: The third issue is to remember that in order to supply the industries, our agriculture must wake up and behave industrially.

Economy
2019: Government is also boosting the capital base of UDB to be able to lend to agriculture as well as small-scale industries. The high cost of capital remains a major challenge to the economy as a whole. To address this challenge, Government is capitalising Uganda Development Bank.
So far, we have capitalised UDB up to Shs272 billion, of which Ushs 53 billion has been provided this financial year.
Next financial year 2019/2020, Government is providing an additional Shs103 billion to bring the total to Ushs 375 billion.
2018: We are going to solve it using the route of the enhanced micro-finance and the more capitalised Uganda Development Bank (UDB).
2017: We are going to lower the cost of money by capitalising UDB. It is high time to massively end the modern slavery of undermining our prosperity while we support the prosperity of others through excessive imports of items that we can make ourselves.
2016: The government, however, will intensify the efforts to capitalize Uganda Development Bank (UDB) because it is erroneous to think that you can modernise agriculture and industrialise the country using Commercial Banks.
2015: Now that the route of privatising UCB did not solve this problem, we are going to take another route, the route of capitalizing Uganda Development Bank (UDB).
We have already invested Uganda Shillings 128 billion in the UDB.