President Museveni has applauded the National Resistance Movement (NRM) leaders for their support and urged them to extend programmes tailored at lifting people out of poverty.
The President was on Wednesday addressing Kampala NRM village chairpersons, who had gathered at Kololo Independence grounds, to discuss matters of national development.
While commenting on some of the concerns raised by leaders in their memorandum presented on their behalf by NRM chairperson of Kawempe Division Daniel Kigozi Mayombwe, Mr Museveni urged all leaders to understand the issue of public service and socio-economic transformation.
Mr Museveni asked leaders to avoid bureaucratic forms of governance that existed during the colonial days that bred massive corruption.
“This is the origin of the Local Council system. The Gombolola, Saza and parish chiefs were not enough to run the administration, so we opted for a parallel administration,” he said.
The President pointed out that a new challenge emerged of wages as the number of public servants increased and yet funds were needed for the construction of roads, electricity, health facilities and other social services.
He said in the coming budget, the government will need more than Shs50 trillion and out of that Shs8 trillion would be for wages.
The President said that is the reason why the concept of leader’s SACCOs was mooted and deemed more appropriate and workable because the government would be injecting there money annually for leaders and it would act as their bank that will grow.
On the socio-economic transformation, Mr Museveni asked leaders to encourage people to embrace the Parish Development Model (PDM) in rural areas and the urbanites can use the peri-urban model as well as take advantage of the production that will accrue from the PDM to buy and sell farmers’ produce, process or even get involved in services.
He welcomed the idea of providing traders with working spaces in the markets as well as the artisan groups. He added that the same will be done for the skilling centres.
The President also asked that garbage bins be placed at every 200 meters within Kampala city.
“I don’t want to see rubbish scattered on the roadsides, No,” he stressed.
He pledged to meet all NRM leaders from all divisions separately to further discuss their concerns.
The Secretary General of NRM, Mr Richard Todwong, expressed gratitude towards the party.
“I am excited by the love your people are expressing for you. When time comes, please offer yourself in 2026. Take this seriously. You don’t have time to say NO. Your age is the best age to be a President with your experience and wisdom,” he said.
Minister for Kampala Minsa Kabanda appreciated government programmes of Emyooga and the PDM as well as the markets that have been provided to hawkers.
Other leaders at the meeting included Vice Secretary General of NRM Rose Namayanja, Director for Mobilisation at the NRM Secretariat Rosemary Sseninde and other officials from the NRM Secretariat.
Other issues
On education, the President said more primary and secondary seed schools will be availed but insisted on affordable education such as day schools.
“I want you to understand the concept of affordable education as opposed to boarding that increases charges that have nothing to do with education like sleeping, eating and so on. Each division or even constituency should have seed schools. The parents also don’t bear the costs. They only concentrate on teachers, laboratories and houses,” he said.
On rigging of votes, Mr Museveni promised to discuss the issue when he meets leaders from Kampala.
