By Sadique Bamwita
As the country joins the rest of the world to mark this year’s World Population Day, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has encouraged Ugandans to focus on wealth creation, innovation and to defend national interests.
The celebrations were held under the theme: “Unlocking the Potential of Uganda’s Population through Technology and Research to Drive Sustainable Development.”
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni argues that the issue of population is one of those subjects that have been poorly diagnosed, saying that some people consider the rise in population as a burden.
“Industrial revolution is the way forward for our countries. Therefore, the NRM does not consider the population as a burden. Rather, the NRM’s concern is: How do you transform the population into wealth creators, innovators, and defenders of the national interests?” He noted.
Museveni noted that a population is not a problem but it becomes a problem only if it is not empowered.
“Today, Uganda has a population of 48 million people; and important to note, one – half of this population is below the age of 18 years. This means that Uganda possesses one of the youngest populations in the world. The question, therefore, is whether these young people are empowered to become wealth creators” he said adding that a population becomes an asset when it is empowered through health, education, skills, productivity and the ability to use science and technology to create wealth.
Through the Vice President Maj Jessica Alupo who delivered his message to the nation, Museveni assured the general public that NRM recognises human beings as the primary factor of production.
“Land is important. Capital is important. Infrastructure is important.
Natural resources are important. However, without the human beings who use knowledge and skills to organize and utilize those resources, there will be stagnation” he said.
Museveni further says as a result of little waking and empowering the people of Uganda and the uninterrupted peace, in all parts of the Country, the country is witnessing some notable milestones. He highlighted some of them including, Uganda being elevated from LDC to lower middle income economy, expansion in the size of Uganda’s economy from USD 3.9bn to USD 68 bn, rise in GDP, reduction of household poverty from 56.4 percent to 16.1 percent, increase in life expectancy driven by immunization and stronger health systems, electricity access, road network, among others.
Museveni said that through the wealth and jobs creation campaign, the government continues to mobilise the remaining 33% of the Ugandan household to join the modernity of the money economy by producing either a good or a service in the four sectors of commercial agriculture, services, industry and ICT.
He further said that In order to fetch more value from our wide range of products, the government has put a stop to the export of raw materials.
“All our products i.e. coffee, maize, cocoa, iron ore,milk, etc., must be processed in Uganda. This has the effect of opening opportunities for greater employment for our youthful population and boosting government revenues” he said.
He reaffirmed government’s commitment to continuing to invest in the people of Uganda, in order to unlock the full potential of Uganda’s population and build a modern, prosperous and self – reliant nation.
