Museveni tells ‘parasites’ in government offices to go to hell

President Museveni has sent a strong message to corrupt civil servants he called “parasites” and “weevils” and once more threatened to deal with a racket of government officials who instead of promoting locally made products opt to buy the same goods manufactured abroad.

In a State House televised address on Hero’s Day yesterday, Mr Museveni said the economy was doing well except with sectors such as tourism which have been affected by the coronavirus disease outbreak.

He asked government officials to support local content and create jobs for the youth warning that those who don’t, will be dealt with.

For example, Mr Museveni said a section of people have objected to an idea to have government documents printed within the country.

He said some have blocked transformer manufacturers from accessing the local market using procurement processes while others have made it difficult for scientists to manufacture their new innovation in malaria treatment.

“The only problem I see is the corruption of public servants. The corruption is in procurement. Why should anybody buy transformers from outside when Uganda is making the transformers and cables? ...We are going to sort it out with all these crooks. If anybody cannot be with us, go to hell. I can no longer tolerate that nonsense because you are killing jobs,” Mr Museveni said at State House.

He added: “The other time we were discussing the issue of security printing. We have got a printing company here. We want it to print government documents. Instead of supporting that you are just buying outside because you are getting some bribes from all those crooks. Our children have got the medicine for malaria. They got new medicine long ago. Much better than this one. But they were being tossed around by our crooks. Go here. Go there until they managed to struggle and now we are going to make a new plant for malaria medicine.”

Mr Museveni said once the bureaucracies are solved, Ugandan scientists will ‘get this (coronavirus) medicine before Europeans get it if we get rid of the parasites within us’.
The President asked the public not to be complacent in the face of coronavirus advising that all should continue to observe social distancing, putting on a mask all the time while in public and avoiding touching their soft parts and surfaces.

He said starting today, the government will distribute masks to all people across the country after they passed the quality standard tests.

“When I pass through town, people are not bothered. They say after all nobody has died. When you start dying, don’t say Museveni didn’t tell us. We don’t have to beg you not to die. No. we have told you what the scientist say about the virus and how you can avoid it. Now it is like it is the work of the police to save you from dying… From tomorrow (today), they will start distributing the government masks even if you have your own, they will give you,” Mr Museveni said.

He explained that the complacency people have shown since the lockdown was eased will soon escalate the Covid-19 cases, overwhelming the health system, which will force the health workers to choose who should die just like it has been the case in Europe.

For now, he has asked health officials to increase the bed capacity from the earlier 9,000 to 40, 000 in preparation of the rising Covid-19 cases. The President said places like Nambole will be turned into treating centres once health facilities are overwhelmed.

He noted that infected drivers reported daily have been reducing in the last one week. Currently, there are 657 cases reported cases out of which 316 are drivers with 118 recoveries.

Mr Museveni also reported that he had received various calls from parents requesting that schools remain closed for as long as the lives of children will be at stake once reopened.