President Museveni has warned saboteurs of the government’s free Education for all program, saying that they are going to come up with a strong law to deal with them and prohibit the charging of fees in government schools.
“Ignorance is also another big problem. We gave you the method, but people don’t listen to us. We said free Education is a way to abolish ignorance, we started on this in 1997 but because of not listening to us, you get resistance; the Head Teachers still bring back school charges and yet we are sending so much money here for UPE. In Teso there are 723 primary schools where we send Shs 7billion for Teso only and we said for the Children of the poor to study, remove school charges but you still find people chasing them from school,” he cautioned.
He was Tuesday campaigning for the NRM flagbearer, Mr Philip Oucor, ahead of Serere County By-Election on Thursday 23rd February 2023.
“We told these people if you think this money we are sending you is not enough, tell us we send more, but don’t send children back home. But they don’t understand that in order to get rid of ignorance, the only medicine is Education for all. NRM is patient we are going to continue, and we are going to bring a new law totally prohibiting the charging of fees in government schools. If you want to charge money, go and build a private school. You will soon hear the war on that issue.”
Gen Museveni explained that the NRM has been solving Uganda’s problems for a long time even before they came to power in 1986. He said when they were still students, they started addressing the country’s problems by telling students not to think about tribalism, and religious sectarianism, and not look down upon women, highlighting it as a reason why the National Resistance Army (NRA) was the first one to recruit women in the army.
“Why? Because that is how we believed that the country’s problems can be solved by relying on everybody according to their individual capacities,” he noted.
“Here we had to first deal with the issue of disarming the Karamojongs because if we didn’t, whatever we do would not survive. And it was not easy because we had to remove 45,000 guns from the Karamojongs. The guns we removed from them were more than the guns of the army of Idi Amin and Obote combined. You can imagine those guns because Idi Amin’s army was 20,000, Obote I’s army was 8,000. I remember the lady who is standing here Alice Alaso, when she was still in Parliament, she opposed our idea of disarming the Karamojongs and other opposition politicians like Pulkol were opposing our idea, we said without disarming, there would be no development,” President Museveni remarked.
He also called on the people of Serere to embrace government programs like Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga to improve their livelihoods.
He further cited the fight against poverty as one of NRM’s struggles to transform people’s lives through modern, commercial and calculated agriculture using a four-acre model. He advised wanainchi to take advantage of government interventions.
“It is not fair for the elite to live a good life in towns and the majority in the village or Serere are living in poverty. Maama Janet has never carried water on her head or carried a child on her back. She used baby cribs,” he noted.
“That is why we say every homestead must learn to make money and do so with calculation. We have been sending money here for Entandikwa, Operation Wealth Creation, Emyooga and recently we sent the Parish Development Model money. There are 821 parishes in Teso and we are sending Shs100 million to each one of them in one year and next year the same. This money is your Parish bank we don’t want you to pay back that money to the government. We want you to pay back to your Parish Bank. You borrow and pay back at a small interest and then another person borrows. We are calculating that if one person borrows Shs1 million in a parish, 100 families will get money in one year. The next year, another 100. Within four years, 400 families would have borrowed and the aim here is to chase poverty from homes. There’s also Emyooga in the constituency. It’s mainly for the skills of the hands like carpentry, tailoring among other skills,” he added.
Regarding overfishing on Lake Kyoga, the President promised to engage elders to work with the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) to stop the vice.
President Museveni also promised to tarmac Kumi-Serere road among other roads.
“The Government cannot do all things at once, but we will do them slowly,” he pledged before officially presenting the party flagbearer to the people of Serere. He requested them to support him wholeheartedly.
The Serere District LCV Chairperson also a member of FDC, Mr Steven Ochora, assured President Museveni that he will work with NRM for the good of the people of Serere.
“Development has no boundaries that are why I’m willing to work with the ruling party. I also take this opportunity to thank the President for giving Serere, a district status, this has enabled the government to bring services closer to our people,” Mr Ochora said.
He however requested the President to upgrade Serere’s only Health Centre IV to a hospital because it serves the whole district. He also brought it to the attention of the President that the Education and Health sectors in the area need to be given priority.