Joyce Namugambe
The President of Uganda His Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has emphasised on the 8 points that Uganda and the whole region need to undertake to achieve economic development, as he mentioned them in his speech to Ugandans a day before celebrating the 61st independence.
The president noted that the region needs to concentrate on these 8 points so that such countries don’t waste time on Aid from the people who want to offer Aid after complying with their conditions which mislead the country for the sake of satisfying the donor’s interests and deny them the chance to stand on their own.
Speaking to the people who attended the function in Kitgum, the President emphasised on points such as rejecting the ideology of identity politics such as religion, tribes, and promoting the ideology of interests of the people to meet their needs in wealth creation, understanding the importance of promoting the private sector known as nekolera jange since it promotes economic development with little supervision, economic infrastructure such as roads, railways to make the movement of goods and services easy to promote trade and to lower on the cost of doing business, promoting social infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, regional, economic and political integration for development.
He went ahead and emphasised the need for international contacts of friendly people who respect our independence, elimination of corruption where he stressed that he is to crash all people engaged in the act and finally protecting the environment and noted that he is to write an executive letter to warn and stop the damage for the environment.
The President also informed the public about the roads which are being worked on in Kitgum and noted that more roads are being worked on such as the Masindi port, Acholi Gulu road which is yet to be started, Kitgum Kidepo road which is yet to be tarmacked, the Northern bridge across the Nile in Masindi, and others. He noted that once the country starts earning from the oil sector, the government is yet to work on more roads for development such as the road he named His resistance road from Gulu to Awere where he had his routes which needs to be worked on and the great road from Soroti through Amulia to Kotido.
However, the President stressed that his team is working on the insecurity caused by cattle rustlers which is taking place in the region but expressed concern over the leaders who take part in the act. He noted the Councilor in Oryem and the LC 5 Chairperson in Amudat who were caught in the act of cattle rustling.
The minister of Presidency Milly Babalanda expressed the challenges that Uganda is facing such as laziness caused by too much sleep and abuse of freedom and association of speech. She noted that some Ugandan political actors have collaborated with the country’s enemies to destruct the issues of development and transformation such as discouraging people from using government programs such as PDM and Emyooga which is keeping people in poverty and denying them a chance to live a happy life.
She appealed to the 7 heads of state of the East African assembly to speed up the implementation of the East African federation since it is giving room to the enemies of the East African countries to hinder their development. She revealed that the office of the President signed a 5 year memorandum of understanding with Bazungu EV, the Germany international NGO together with the Prince Kimbugwe foundation to undertake a medical camp in each of the districts where national functions will be hosted which has been done in Kitgum this year.
This function was attended by the heads of delegations from other states, Chief justice, cultural leaders, and religious leaders, political and administrative leaders, among others.
The President has awarded 42 people with medals in different categories of which 10 awardees are women, who were carefully considered by the Presidential awards committee consisting of 9 members.
The categories include Order of the Nile class 2, Order of the Nile class 4, National independence medal, Nalubaale medal, Luwero Triangle medal, Service order first class medal, Exemplary service order 2nd class, Distinguished service medal of police, Award of long service with good conduct 30years plus class medal, Guarantry star medal, Meditoria service medal, Honorary medal of police, and Long service with good conduct silver 25years plus medal.
