By KT Reporter
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has urged Ugandans to embrace wealth creation initiatives as a sustainable way to address unemployment and poverty in the country. While addressing a campaign rally at Amanang Playground in Bukwo District on Monday, November 10, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate said the government has ensured peace and development across the country, but these gains will not be fully enjoyed if citizens remain poor.
Museveni emphasized that wealth creation is the surest way to create jobs within communities and reduce dependence on government employment. “The government cannot employ everyone. We only have about 400,000 jobs against a population of 50 million Ugandans. The best way to solve unemployment is through wealth creation,” he said. The President pointed out that government empowerment programs such as the Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga were designed to help Ugandans become self-employed and create more jobs at the local level.
He also pledged to improve social services in Bukwo District, promising that the government will construct a primary school in every parish and a secondary school in every sub-county to improve access to education. In the health sector, the President committed to upgrading Bukwo Health Centre IV to district hospital status and elevating all existing Health Centre IIs to Health Centre IIIs to enhance service delivery. “All this will be possible when the NRM is voted back into power,” Museveni said.
As part of his campaign launch in the Sebei Sub-region, Museveni also promised to sponsor a group from Bukwo for a benchmarking trip to Europe to study how local communities in the Alps properly use mountain environments — lessons he said could help stop the rampant landslides in the Sebei Sub-region that recently claimed 20 lives.
The NRM Presidential candidate noted that the nature of the soils on the slopes of Mountain Elgon does not favor agriculture or settlements, and urged residents to adopt better land-use practices to avert disasters. “After the elections, I will work out a plan to support some of the residents in this area to go to Europe and benchmark on how natives there utilize the Alps, and we can replicate the same here at home,” Museveni said during the rally at Amanang Secondary School Playground in Bukwo District.
He further explained that Mountain Elgon, like the Rwenzori ranges, is a tourism resource that should be managed well to benefit the entire nation. In addition, Museveni promised to scale up economic and infrastructural developments in Bukwo District, including expanding access to piped water, improving telephone and electricity distribution, and extending tarmac roads to more areas in the district. The pledges form part of the NRM’s broader campaign agenda aimed at consolidating socio-economic transformation in the Sebei Sub-region and beyond.
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