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Uganda: Museveni Outlines Priorities in State-of-the-Nation Address

4 June 2009

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In order to address the most critical growth constraints in the economy, Government focused on increasing resource allocation towards infrastructure development, particularly roads and energy. In order to achieve the twin objectives of increasing expenditures on infrastructure and to prevent fueling inflation pressures, the Government will continue to implement efficiency improvement measures in order to create the necessary space to allow increased resource allocation to priority areas.

The strategy includes, among others, ensuring that budget performance is improved through strengthening the link between public spending and results, in addition to re-orienting budget allocation more towards the targeted priority areas. The specific measures that are being implemented to achieve the above objectives include ensuring that expenditure releases are based on credible work plans, establishment of an effective monitoring systems to track and evaluate expenditures vis-à-vis intended targets. I have directed the Prime Minister to ensure that the results of each Government agency are discussed by Cabinet on a quarterly basis which I will personally chair.

Although there has been domestic revenue shortfall during the current fiscal year, planned priority programs and projects have been implemented without resource constraints; and implementation capacity has been enhanced to improve the speed at which projects and programs will be implemented.

PROSPERITY FOR ALL

The NRM Government has since the 2006 General elections clearly pronounced itself on the goal for achieving Prosperity-for-All Ugandan households. Achieving Prosperity-for-All has so far and will continue to require Government concerted interventions in the following areas:

• The holistic integrated development of Agriculture and Rural Development

• Development and Maintenance of Infrastructure including rural, national and regional roads; energy and communications

• Development of Human Resources through Education, Skills and Vocational training;

• Continued Peace and Security for All

• Good Governance including the fight against Corruption and the Rule of Law.

Agriculture and rural development

The ultimate goal as far as agriculture and rural development is concerned is to ensure that rural households in Uganda earn an income of, at least, sh20m and have livelihoods that enable them meet the basic necessities. To date, the following actions pertaining to agriculture development have been implemented:

• The restructured National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) has completed the roll-out exercise to cover all districts with a renewed emphasis on ensuring that 30,000 demonstration farmers, organized into farmer groups or cooperatives, will, every year, be provided with the necessary planting or breeding inputs, skills and knowledge to transform their production systems into commercially viable agricultural ventures. This intervention will ensure that farmers are able to produce economically viable volumes of produce and can more easily be linked to agro-processing industries and consequently access the market with higher value goods. By February 2009, 5,875 producer co-operatives across the country had been promoted, registered and developed, an increase of about 900 cooperatives since the resumption of the restructured NAADS programme in December 2008. A further 103 secondary co-operatives had also been promoted, registered and developed for purposes of value addition and collective marketing by February 2009, an increase of 65 from end-December 2008.

• Other critical elements to increasing household incomes has been the provision of high-yielding, pest and disease resistant varieties of planting materials and breeding stock developed through the National Agricultural Research system; the support to value adding processors of agricultural produce, improving market access and the provision of micro-level finance through Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations (SACCOs).

In respect to these areas, I am glad to report the following:

• New high yielding, pest and disease resistant varieties of rice, coffee, banana and cassava have been developed by NARO for multiplication.

• In order to achieve better market access for farmers to sell their produce at premium prices, the Warehouse Receipt Scheme is being progressively rolled out; three warehouses have been registered, licensed and are fully operational. They include Agro-ways Ltd in Jinja, Masindi Seed Growers Association in Masindi and Nyakatonzi Growers Co-operative Union in Kasese.

• The objective of making available microfinance infrastructure has been largely achieved as there are now currently over 1,500 SACCOs across the country with a membership of almost 650,000. By end-December 2008, these SACCOS had been created in every sub-county, municipality and town council divisions of the country, except 56 out of the 1,085 local government authorities. A total of sh65b had been lent out by these SACCOS from savings of sh55b and SACCOs own share capital of sh22b I understand that there are an additional 2,000 registered but privately based micro-finance institutions that are providing financial service to Ugandans across the country, bringing the total savings from this sector alone to over sh100b

I have also noted with concern the continued slow implementation and ineffectiveness of public servants in Government departments and agencies at implementing programmes and projects that we have directed them to do. This is constraining the delivery of much needed inputs and infrastructure for agriculture and rural development.

I advise Honourable Members to actively get acquainted with the projects and programmes that have been planned for their respective constituencies and for which resources have been provided, but for which public servants are sabotaging for either personal gain or sheer ineffectiveness. This leads to poor implementation of projects and programmes in rural areas. Let me reiterate that I will not hesitate to take punitive action against public servants who are not performing their duties with utmost commitment and dedication and do not deliver intended results in this sector.

Development and maintenance of infrastructure

I will now turn to three areas of infrastructure that are critical to both immediate and long-term growth, development and socio-economic transformation, namely:-

• Transportation infrastructure

• Energy infrastructure

• National Information technology infrastructure

Progress with road transport

In direct support to agriculture and rural development, 20,000 km of the 40,000 km of district roads will have received routine maintenance while 850 km will have been re-graveled and rehabilitated by the end of June this year. This will ensure the produce that our farmers and other traders and business people can access district and nation-wide markets more efficiently without delays and also lower the costs of transportation of rural production.

The Road Fund has also now been fully constituted and in the next financial year will be operationalized to provide road maintenance funding for National, district and urban roads and later community roads. With adequate funding the road maintenance backlog will be dealt with in the medium term, which situation has previously constrained efficient transportation of goods and produce in the past. Hon Members must be on the alert for the respective plans and maintenance programmes to be financed by the Road Fund in their districts and constituencies to ensure that they receive their due share of allocated funds and that these funds are used effectively.

At the national level, in this Financial Year, construction for upgrading to tarmack of Matugga - Semuto - Kapeeka road commenced while similar works continued on the following roads:-

• Kabale - Kisoro - Bunagana - Kyanika

• Soroti - Dokolo - Lira

• Kampala - Gayaza - Zirobwe

• Kampala Northern Bypass

The reconstruction of Jinja - Bugiri and the rehabilitation of Kawempe - Luwero - Kafu roads is near completion and the reconstruction of Kampala - Masaka - Mbarara and Busega - Mityana roads has commenced. The contracts for the rehabilitation of the following roads have been awarded and work has already started on some:

• Mbarara - Ntungamo - Kabale - Katuna

• Mbarara - Ishaka

• Masaka - Kyotera/Nyendo - Villa Maria

• Lira - Kamudini

• Kawempe - Kampala

• Kampala - Mukono

• Mbarara-Bwizibwera

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