President Museveni has advised Ugandans to eat local foods instead of bread and use sunflower and castor oil to substitute for soap.
The president said he was tempted to look at removing taxes for internally produced commodities.
“However, the tax loss would cripple our budget and the planned developments. It is the continued development of the economy that will get us to the stability of a more integrated economy,” he said on Sunday while addressing the nation on the current economic situation.
“In my head, I had sympathy for removing taxes on locally produced goods such as sugar, milk, cement, etc. because, if People buy more of them, it will be good – they would be buying more local goods. This was until I looked at the taxes to be lost,” he added.
According to Museveni, on sugar, the country would lose Ugx.193 billion, on cement, Ugx.200 billion and mitayimbwa (iron bars) Ugx.120 billion. “We could see that the route to tax cuts and subsidies, even for the locally produced goods, was not a wise one.”
What, then, is the wise way?
Museveni said the wise way is to use frugally these imported items (kukekereza, kwereembareemba) or kubyesonyiwa (get alternatives).
“To use our own raw-materials–such as sunflower oil and castor oil (enshoga-shoga) for soap as we wait for the expanded palm oil production which takes longer – sunflower takes only 4 months.”
He said for bread, there are alternative local foods.
“We can use our banana and cassava flour for bread-making apart from eating the traditional foods; for many years now, I do not eat wheat bread nor rice; I eat our richer indigenous foods of akaro (millet), muhogo (cassava), empogora (bananas cooked in their skin), ebinyobwa (G-nuts), obushaza (peas), enyamay’ente (beef), etc.”
Museveni said, because of eating local foods, he is nearing 78 years of age in September and “I am doing very well”.
“I have no hesitation bearing testimony for our much better indigenous food. Millet is the only cereal in nature that has got protein, carbohydrates and iron. I had also read something comparable for sorghum.”
He said, however, for the indigenous sorghum, there was the problem of some bitterness.
“However, with bio-technology by our researchers, the bitterness can be removed. We, the Ntungamoists, the only advantage we found in bread was convenience in storing and transporting.”
He said this is what Dr. Muranga in Nyaruziinga, in Bushenyi, is going to solve with the banana flour and cassava flour which is much healthier than wheat flour that has got the problem of dry glutin which is 9.9% and, therefore, is not good for the human body.
He said the ministry of agriculture is going to guide as to how farmers can up-scale the production of sunflower and castor oil seeds for vegetable oil for soap making as well as bananas and cassava for flour for bread.
Sun-flower takes just 4 months and castor oil seeds (enshoga-shoga), take between 140– 180 days to produce pods.
“With Palm oil, I hear that Indonesia and Malaysia have banned the export of that item and, therefore, removing the tax will not change anything.”