Kampala — STATE minister for finance Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho has lashed out at scholars for failing to invent solutions to eradicate poverty and corruption in Africa.

"We need to blame you the academia for failing to conceptualise our problems and get solutions to our people's problems. You just talk, then write a few sentences and blame everybody else except yourselves," the minister told a three-day conference organised by a network of Black American policy specialists and the Makerere university Business School in Kampala yesterday.

He noted that the Government had a strategic programme to tackle poverty in Uganda.

"We have made a lot of achievements despite the challenges of rapid population growth, the energy crisis, unfavourable terms of trade and vagaries of weather. We are determined to succeed. It is an uphill task that we have embraced whole-heartedly."

Earlier, President Yoweri Museveni, in a speech read by the state minister for industry, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, said Uganda's development is spurred by good governance and sound economic policies.

"The NRM, which steered Uganda from social-economic decay in 1986, has been on a steady development course towards transformation of society," he said.

Museveni explained that the transformation is due to the sound micro and macro-economic policies that have been employed over all sectors.

The Minister for Education and Sports, Geraldine Namirembe Bitamazire, boasted that Uganda was experiencing an education boom.

"Enrollment has shot up right from primary level when we introduced the UPE (universal primary school), USE (universal secondary education) up to tertiary level."

The US ambassador, Steven Browning, revealed that his government's partnership with Uganda includes security enhancement, improvement in health and promotion of democracy and trade.

MUBS principal Wasswa Balunywa noted that MUBS was still part of Makerere University for graduation purposes.

Present were MUBS chairman of council Collin Sentongo and Southern University Associate Dean Ashagre Yigletu.