National Resistance Movement

Office of the National Chairperson

Plot 10 Kyadondo Road Box 7778 Kampala Tel: 346295 346279

THE JOY OF CAMPAIGNING FOR THE NRM IN 2015

I would like to inform the reader that by today, the 15th

December, 2015, I have addressed 104 constituency rallies out
of the total of 290 constituencies. This is in 48 districts of the
112 districts of Uganda.

What is remarkable is that almost all these rallies are

characterized by two factors. They are massive and, most of
them, celebratory.

In some of them, the population regards

them as normal consultation meetings where they take

opportunity to complain against NAADS/OWC, complaining
about bad roads, Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) excesses,
the floods and water logging of the soil, the fisheries staff that
extort money from the people, etc., etc.
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Except for Maracha West, Bobi and Acholibur, the rest of the
rallies were massive: 50,000, 100,000 or even 200,000 per each
of these rallies according to my visual estimation.

Used to

addressing soldiers barazas, I have got a good eye for

assembled numbers.

The other smallish rallies were at Kamion and Tapac for special
reasons.

The minority Ik have got a small constituency of

3,000 voters out of a population of 6,000.

In the 1960s I read a book by a certain European referring to
them as the disappearing tribe of Africa. Now, thanks to the
NRM, they are 6,000 and have their own small constituency.
Then there are the Tepeth of Mount Moroto.
11,000 voters.

They are with

Again, they now have peace, some schools,

health centres and their own constituency for the first time. All
the 3,000 Ik voters and the 11,000 Tepeth voters must have
turned up from what I gathered. Their rallies were, therefore, a
good yardstick for the other bigger rallies, re-enforcing my
comparative visions of the soldier barazas a battalion is 736
persons, etc.
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Why are these rallies good natured and celebratory?

It is,

mainly, because of the current policies of the NRM, starting

with 2001, of prioritizing defence, electricity and roads. Right
from 1986, we had prioritized Health and Education. You go to
Zirobwe, there is electricity; Makulubita, there is; Wabinyonyi,
there is; Amolatar, there is; Koboko, there is; Yumbe, there is;
Moyo, there is; Namukora, there is; Padibe, there is; Lagoro,
there is; etc., etc. You go to Karamoja, there is electricity; there
is electricity in Abim, Amudat, Moroto, Napak, Matany,
Nakapiripirit etc., etc.

Only Kotido and Kaabong are not yet

connected; but they will soon be because the money is there.

When you come to Teso, it is the same story except for
Kapelabyong, Toroma and Dakabela. The plans, however, for
connecting them are in place. Sebei is connected all the way to
Kween and Bukwo although the Bukwo lines are not yet fired
because they are still being installed. Bugisu, it is the same
story. Muyembe, the hilly Bulegeni, Budadiri, Bulucheke,
Manafwa, Namisindwa, Magale, Buumbo, Lwakhakha, etc. etc.,
are all electrified. This is not to forget Bukoonde and Budadiri
whose residents had to withstand strong down pours to listen

to my address. As for Mbale town, a sea of people waited for us

until we came well after 5:00p.m.
It is not just the electricity, mainly funded by the Government
of Uganda (GOU), it is also the tarmac roads, again, mainly
funded by the GOU. The tarmac road has reached Koboko and
Oraba. The other one has reached Atiak and Nimule. OlwiyoGulu-Kitgum-Musingo

is

being

worked

on.

Bwaise-Kafu-

Karuma-Gulu is being reconstructed. Moroto-NakapiripiritMuyembe-Mbale is being tarmacked. Kapchorwa-Bukwo-Suam

is being funded by the African Development Bank (ADB)
together with the road on the Kenya side. So is Mbale-MagaleLwakhakha with a branch to Manjiya. The Mbale Municipality
roads are being tarmacked. The Tororo-Mbale-Soroti road has
just been completed. Brand new markets have been completed
in
Gulu, Lira, Mbale, Jinja, etc. offering improved workplaces for
our market people.
The 5 star secondary schools, part of the 611 funded by a
World Bank loan and the African Development Bank (ADB IV)
constructed or reconstructed by the Ministry of Education, are
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in evidence here and there: Mbale SS, Masaba SS, St.

Catherine SS - Lira, Teso College Aloet - Teso, Nabumali High
School Mbale, Sacred High School Gulu, St. Joseph College
Ombachi, Metu SS Moyo, St. Aloysius Nyapea - Nebbi.
It is the peace and these projects, unprecedented phenomena
of development and transformation in the history of Uganda,
that have fired up our people. Our people now require little
mobilization. They respond spontaneously most of the time
walking in big throngs to the rally sites and back.

Some

bicycling or using the scores and scores of Piki Pikis (boda

bodas).
How did the NRM manage to achieve all this development?
One, by 1997, we had caused the minimum recovery that
Uganda needed so badly. With that recovery, growth has been
steady, the lack of good infrastructure (electricity and roads)
notwithstanding. The rate of growth has been 7% per annum
for the last 30 years. This has enabled our tax collection to
improve from Uganda Shs. 5 billion in 1986 to 13,000 billion
shillings, today.

Although I normally keep aloof from interfering in the workings

of the collective leadership, not even attending Cabinet
meetings most of the time, when I deem it vital for strategic
reasons (political, cultural, economic or security), I put my foot
down in spite of the difficult Constitution introduced in 1995
that eroded the Powers of the President with misguided
concepts of pseudo-democracy.

I did this on the issue of the return to the Asians of their

properties that Amin had stolen; on the Ranches restructuring
in the Ankole Masaka area; on the return of the cultural
institutions; on the privatization of the parastatals; on the
reduction of the size of the army; on the cutting of 23% from all
the ministries to fund defence in 2001 so as to defeat Kony and
the cattle-rustlers; and on the prioritization of the expenditure
on the roads and electricity in 2006.
To the credit of my colleagues in the Government and the Party,
when I put forward these very strong reasons, an exercise that
is, sometimes, tiresome, they, sometimes, agree and we move
positively as we have done on the points I have quoted above.

It is, therefore, some of the moves quoted above that are

responsible for the good mood one finds in the country today.
In particular, the 2001 decision to enhance the defence budget
and the prioritization of expenditure on the roads and
electricity. These three moves saw the budget of Defence move
from 350 billion shillings (2005/06) to 1,400 billion shillings
(2015/16); that of Energy (electricity) moved from 178 billion
shillings (2005/06) to 2,858 billion shillings (2015/16); and
that of Works (roads) moved from 398 billion shillings
(2005/06) to the current level of 3,442 billion shillings
(2015/16).

It is these moves that have fired up the peoples

enthusiasm.
Being sincere and open minded, when they see what has been
done, they know that even what is not yet done, will be done. It
is just logic and honesty.
Some of our opponents, in vain, try to use our successes
against us by misinforming the public. In particular, they try to
use the phenomenon of more youth in our population and
more graduates that are not employed or are not employable on
account of the courses they did in the university. The
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population of Uganda has surged from 14 million in 1986, to

38 million today. Why? It is because of the NRM health
programmes, especially the immunization against the 13 killer
diseases.

These

are:

tuberculosis,

Polio,

Whooping

diphtheria,

cough,

influenza,

tetanus,

measles,

Pneumonia/Meningitis,

Hepatitis B, diarrhea, cervical cancer, mumps and German

measles. It is not just the immunization. Even other health
programmes have been put in place. How has Uganda managed
to nip in the bud the three outbreaks of Ebola (Gulu,
Bundibugyo and Kibaale) and Marburg (in 2007 Kamwenge,
2012 Kabale-Ibanda-Kampala, 2014 Kampala)?

There are still gaps such as the need for more pay for the
health workers, the institutional houses for the health workers,
etc., etc.

However, there are so many tremendous successes

such as the immunization programme, the building of 930 new

Health Centre IIIs since 1986, the building of 193 new Health
Centre IVs, the repairing of 13 district hospitals and the
building of 3 new hospitals.

This is what has caused the

increase of the population and improved the life expectancy

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from 43 years to 58.7 years.

Therefore, the youth the

opportunists talk about, are NRM youth.

The NRM has not only supported their survival, but has also
educated them. Hence, the large number of graduates, many
of whom did not get jobs. This, however, is not a disaster. It is
a half done job.

Would it have been better for the youth to

remain illiterate so that there are no unemployed graduates?

These unemployed graduates and other school leavers can be

retooled and they will be retooled. Secondly, they can be and
they are being assisted to employ themselves and employ
others. We just need to prioritize the livelihood funds as we did
the funds for the roads, the electricity, defence, etc. All the 5
funds are already there but they are not enough. These are:
NAADs-OWC; the Youth Livelihood Programme; the Women
Fund; the Micro-finance Fund; and the Innovation Fund. The
graduates, employed or otherwise, will join the private sector
rather than joining the bureaucracy as self-employed persons.
That is why in the financial year 2013/2014, I started the
Youth Livelihood Programme. It was actually, initially, for those
graduates. I saw it as compensatory support to the families
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that had supported our children through private sponsorship

in the Universities.

My reasoning was that if the graduate

cannot get a job, let us help him or her to create selfemployment.

When the fund went to Parliament, the MPs

altered it and said that it should be for all the Youth. That is
no problem. They are all tasks that need to be done. Having
prioritized for the electricity, the roads, the defence, the
immunization, the education, the ICT, let us now also prioritize
for the livelihood funds, the five of them.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education has been working on the

change of the Curriculum so that science and technical
education is emphasized early enough and taught differently.
This is to cope with the paradox of unmanned jobs such as the
2,202 doctor jobs, 19,675 Nurses and Midwifery jobs, 18,000
Engineer jobs.

These jobs are there but they have no doers

because there are no Ugandans qualified in them.

As the

Private Sector expands, many more such jobs will be available.

How many engineers are required for an upper middle income
country like Malaysia?

The number is 87,000. How about

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South Korea? The number is 148,000. That is why in 2005, I

directed that 70% of Government scholarships must go to
Scientists.

There are those who talk about jobs for our youths in not a
serious manner. The NRM, by working on peace, on electricity,
on the roads, on the railway, on the ICT backbone, on
education, on health, is laying a base for job-creation.

The

Services sector is already employing 426,910 people.

The

Industrial sector is already employing 142,289 persons.

Since we have worked on electricity, the factories are flooding

in. Witness the factories springing up in Namanve, MukonoJinja road, the Matugga area, the Luwero-Nakaseke road of
Sanga, the Industrial Estate at Kapeeka, the Industrial Estate
at Kaweweta, the Industrial Estate at Sukulu hills (Tororo), the
new cement factory in Karamoja, the new milk factories in the
Mbarara area etc., etc.

Electricity was the problem.

With

electricity, we are now moving on our point no. 5 in the NRM

ten points programme - building an economy that is integrated,
independent and self-sustaining. The population understands
this when one explains to them. Hence, the positive attitude.
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Anybody serious and not malicious knows that the numerous

problems Uganda had could not be solved at one go. One by
one, makes a bundle (Kamwe Kamwe nugwo muganda).

Above, I have, mainly, talked about the tarmac roads. We also

have a solution for the murram roads.

We have arranged to

buy 733 pieces of equipment from Japan. This will give each
district an extra grader (they already have one each from
China), a wheel-loader, a road compacter, a water bowzer and
two tippers. There are 18 zones (the former colonial districts of
independence).

Each of these will have a bull-dozer with its

own low-loader to move it around so as to back-up the district.

With this equipment, the districts will be able to work on the
roads themselves without the need for tendering which has
been full of corruption and over-pricing.
Hence, it has been a joy really to campaign for the NRM in
2015. I feel the enthusiasm and love of the people. Having to
address 4 rallies a day and also have other smaller meetings, I
do not get enough time to address all the issues. However, this
pleasant campaign has helped us to be in touch with our
people following the unprecedented development strides being
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made

on

the

ground,

the

remaining

challenges

notwithstanding.
I salute the people of Uganda. We are unstoppable. We are
doing all this without our oil money. What will happen with
our oil money? This is why the NRM leaders need to rise to the
occasion and expunge ego-centrism. Individuals do not cause
changes. It is the Party that has caused those changes. Be
humble and subordinate your ambitions to the plans of the
Party. Do not be dishonest. Be truthful. Even when you are
disappointed by the dishonest, work for the Party loyally. The
truth will come out.
Uganda is not disappearing today. We have been victims of
unfairness in the past and even today when we are falsely
accused. The truth, however, always comes out.
I thank you.

Yoweri K. Museveni Gen. (rtd)

CHAIRMAN NRM, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA
AND PRESIDENTIAL FLAG-BEARER FOR THE NRM PARTY

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