The National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED) leader, Joseph Kabuleta Kizza has urged to demand for a fair share of the Natural resources.
Meeting the locals and politicians who lost in last year’s general elections on Monday, the former presidential candidate, Kabuleta said Teso is one of the regions in Uganda which are well endowed with natural resources but the ordinary residents have not been able to get a fair share out of them.
He says, this is one of the reasons why most locals are in abject poverty.
“What brings us to Teso is to help these people of this region to appreciate the fact that they are well endowed and they have resources that are actually enough for them to go by,” he said.
Adding,” They only have to stand up and demand for a fair share of their resources that are being gotten from this place and that way, they will be able to lift themselves from poverty.”
“Now we are here to tell them as much as we know that we’re all being failed by this system, we want to define the sort of change that we need and we are here to preach the gospel of economic empowerment, to tell people that they can be empowered economically to stand up and fight for what is rightly theirs and actually be a partaker in the wealth that God deposited in this region which they are actually entitled as people of this area,” he said.
Kabuleta further noted that unlike in some other parts of the country, the people of Teso are very galvanized and they are ready to stand up and fight as long as the leadership gap issue is addressed.
Goretti Asio, former Soroti District Woman MP contestant and member of NEED, said the people in the region have suffered under the current government due to delayed livestock compensation and consistent land grabbing tendencies.
Teso is one of the sub regions that faced cattle raids, insurgencies and insecurity over the past years.
“As the region of Teso, we have had a lot of challenges. Respective, we have leaders in different government positions but they are just there to fill the posts. We have not benefitted much from those positions, so NEED has come to enlight the people of the potentials that the country has, in that we the ordinary people can also tap on the resources of our country. The people of Teso have been played for a very long time,”Asio stated.
“The compensation of our cattle up to date has become a political game that whenever there’s an election, that’s when NRM comes up to talk about the compensation of the people of Teso,” she said.