We expect more from the President

To whom much is given, much will be required (Luke 12:48), and so will we expect to hold President Museveni to account in his sixth elective five-year term in office. Luckily, President Museveni set out five audit benchmarks for his next five years in office as he inaugurated his Cabinet. Confessedly, President Museveni said he trusts this team, who “should push the country to a middle income” status. 
The President’s own right-hand squad has a mix of what he calls very committed, hardworking and active mobilisers, who are also a team of listeners. 

The team comprise “the ancients” or old hands in veteran politicians Magode Ikuya, children of Mr Museveni’s co-revolutionaries, whom he challenged to “push the programme of [their] parents”, coupled with the babies or the Kampala parents products. In this team, President Museveni, who said he had always sailed against headwinds driven by frustrating technocrats and politicians, who failed his agenda, is confident of sailing with to a desired destination. 

In this team, we believe, President Museveni will have no excuse not to deliver his core promises to the electorate. Nevertheless, the President has only to recast his dream of frog-leaping Uganda to a middle-income status to his previous two terms in office, which failed to realize the selfsame aspirations. 
Nonetheless, there seems some comfort for the President in the recent Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) Household Survey, indicating that 68 per cent of Ugandans are now engaged in money economy, namely working for both the stomach (consumption) and the pocket (income). This, the President says, leaves only 39 per cent of compatriots in homestead economy or the economy of the stomach (subsistence). 

But as voters, our key take away from the event is the President’s avowal of “we are going to crush the corrupt people!” We shall also audit him on his resolve to generate more public good through one of his key pillars of the sixth elective term, which is to champion a “government of service delivery in education, healthcare, the roads, etc. It was heartwarming to hear Mr Museveni say: “I don’t want to hear any more outcries – issues of justice, land and evictions...”

We will audit the President on his unequivocal statement that “nobody should be in public service if [they] don’t have a public spirit ... we don’t want parasites in the public service!” In these words, the President has set out the core missions of his Cabinet, namely to build cohesion, implement NRM party agenda, zero-tolerance to corruption, integrating regional economy, eliminating parasites from the public service, and delivering both physical and social infrastructure.
We wait to audit President Museveni’s  promises by close of 2025.