Museveni’s unkept promises: a scorecard Hot air: Museveni displays his President Elections Manifesto to voters at a rally at Icheme in Oyamu district in 2010 On the campaign trail three years ago, President Museveni in public statements and the ruling NRM’s 246-page manifesto promised many offerings to the electorate. In the manifesto alone, he promised to steer the country to a middle-income country through robust economic recovery, eradicate widespread poverty, scale back the soaring unemployment and up the fortunes in the agricultural sector as well as fight corruption. He also promised to fight environmental degradation and climate change, improve the poor infrastructure especially roads and energy, the health service delivery system, and poor quality education, among others. But has he kept his pledges? Three years into his re-election, it is clear that although there have been some achievements, many promises remain unkept. Two years to the end of Museveni’s current term, it is highly improbable that Uganda can climb into the middle-income category, with official reports showing that a quarter of the population is still trapped in abject poverty. Museveni also promised an economic growth of 10 per cent. But based on the budget estimates for the last two financial years, figures show economic growth has not hit the projected target. For instance, in financial years 2011/12 and 2012/13, the growth rate recorded was 3.4 per cent and 5.1 per cent, respectively, way too below the set targets of seven per cent. Dr Julius Kiiza, a political economist at Makerere University, said: “It is highly doubtable that he [Museveni] can achieve what he promised the electorate.” In his 2011 manifesto, Museveni pledged to address widespread poverty, growing unemployment and declining fortunes in the agricultural sector but in his view, Kiiza argues that this can’t be achieved under the current regime. “If you look at the reported growth as per figures from ministry of finance, it will be very hard for Museveni’s leadership to create jobs or eradicate poverty when the main growing sectors are construction, communication and fishing. This is cosmetic growth,” he said, adding: “For growth to make impact, it has to be reflected in substantial sectors like manufacturing, you need industries to create jobs as well as create market for agricultural output that makes more sense when it comes to value addition.” A 2013 household survey report written by Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) found that the unemployment rate has soared to over 60 per cent while poverty levels have soared too, with more than half of the population on the verge of sliding into the poverty trap.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 01:13:21 +0000
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