Kampala — The former UN under-secretary for Children and Armed Conflicts has, after a two-week whirlwind tour of his home country, concluded that the ruling NRM government is a "colossal fraud."

Mr Olara Otunnu, visiting Uganda for the first time in decades, said people in the countryside were economically worse off today than before President Museveni came to power in 1986.

"The gap between the image which is being projected of Uganda internationally and the reality Ugandans experience on a daily basis is staggering. There is humiliating poverty throughout the country," he told Daily Monitor in an interview in Kampala over the weekend.

He added: " People's standards of living have plummeted drastically." The criticism attracted a strong rebuttal in Kampala with a Cabinet Minister describing Mr Otunnu, who flew out of the country on Tuesday, "a day dreamer."

Ms Kabakumba Masiko, the Information Minister and government spokesperson, said Ugandans would not be swayed by empty rhetoric of elites when the NRM government has introduced tangible developments.

"Ugandans who have been in the country know the difference, where we were in 1986, how far we have come and the positives President Museveni's government has done," she said.

Mr Otunnu, however, said the much publicised NRM government's gains, which he said include improved roads and private sector led urban housing growth, are "few and far between; embarrassingly meagre for a regime that has been in power uninterrupted for 23 years."

Ms Masiko said the fact that Mr Otunnu was able to traverse the whole country by road in a few days attests to the better national road network, which previous governments including the Milton Obote II government, that he served, failed to accomplish.

The former top UN envoy earlier said UPE, an otherwise good programme, has been messed up prompting top government employees to abandon public schools for the poor and take their children to costly private schools "to reproduce their own privileged class."

In the interview to be published in full this week, Mr Otunnu speaks about the cynicism of marrying for political convenience, the necessity for a joint opposition campaign fund for 2011 ballot and marketing federal governance as a national priority.