Museveni attacks ‘colonial’ civil servants, praises ‘fishermen’   

President Museveni has accused public servants of behaving like colonialists who did not wish the country well, 65 years after Africans started independence wars.
“I feel sorry that the public servants in Uganda have refused [to become patriotic] now almost 65 years since African countries started regaining independence. The continent has so many problems because people like you don’t know what they are doing,” he said.
The President made the remarks while officiating at a retreat organised for political leaders and senior technocrats at the Office of the Prime Minister  (OPM) at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds yesterday.

He said the mission of his ruling party is to ensure Uganda becomes industrialised, and transform 39 percent of households still practicing subsistence agriculture into commercial farmers.
“When NRM came on the scene, we looked at the story of man and said Africa, starting with Uganda, must reduce this gap of 400 years. In Europe, most of the things are done by machine, but in Africa we still use manual power. You say you are public servant of this group that has lost sight for the last 600 years and you are behind them, you should wake up,” he said. 
 
“How will these Africans get out of society of manual power to society of machine power? We should not be in a situation where a peasant produces another peasant. We must learn to be progressive,”  Mr Museveni added.
He praised the performance of the prime minister, Ms Robinah Nabbanja, and other officials.
“I am really very happy that these fishermen who have come seem to be pushing things very well. The speed at which you are moving including going to Kyankwanzi to de-cobweb your mind is very welcome. We need to educate our people about dangers of subsistence economy and move to productive systems that will generate income to the households,” Mr Museveni said. 

The head of State said the first step must be to produce and then look for market for the products.
“On the side of taming nature, you need a strategy. You do this by producing goods and services using science. When you sell these goods, the more people buy from you, the better. In order to create prosperity, you need to produce goods and services and sell them to others. We need the region, we need Africa and other regional markets for our products,” he said.
The team at the OPM resolved to work together to improve performance and ensure government programmes are delivered on time.

Ms Nabbanja hit out at government officials, accusing them of sitting back as Opposition politicians spread lies about the government’s performance. 
“NRM has been losing grounds where some of our technical people seated here come from. Can you imagine that some of these people seated here come from Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono and other places where NRM has been losing because they have not told people about government programmes and achievements?” she wondered.
The premier said the OPM has embarked on mindset change, better time management and quality service delivery.

“For the last six months, we have been able to hold progressive meetings with different ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to improve the performance of different government programmes,” she said.
The prime minister said government has free airtime on different media houses, which its officials must use to popularise its programmes.   
She said her office has zero tolerance to corruption and that those implicated “will have to dance to the laws of the land”.