SPEECH BY

H.E. YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

ON THE OCCASION TO MARK

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY

THEME: BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH

GOOD WORK ETHICS

PALLISA DISTRICT
1ST MAY 2017

Your Excellency the Vice President;
Rt. Honourable Speaker of Parliament;
Your Lordship the Chief Justice;
Rt. Honourable Deputy Speaker of Parliament;
Rt. Honourable Prime Minister;
Rt. Honourable Deputy Prime Ministers;
The Religious Leaders;
Honourable Ministers;
Your Excellencies Ambassadors and High
Commissioners;
Honourable Members of Parliament;
All the workers present;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen.

I take this opportunity to salute all the workers of Uganda on

the occasion to mark International Labour Day. This day is
commemorated not as a mere routine but as an occasion to
reflect on the contribution of labour towards economic
development.

Today we commemorate Labour Day at a moment in our history

when workers are enjoying the economic dividends of the
peace and stability which were brought about by the NRM
Government.
Those of you who are old enough will recall that when the NRM
seized the leadership of this country in 1986, the economy was
in dire straits.
Many of the public and private enterprises were operating way
below capacity or had shut down. Many workers had also been
laid off or made redundant by factories. Consequently, most of
the goods, including basic essential goods, were being
imported from neighbouring countries like Kenya. Our labour
force was, therefore, making very limited contribution to the
economy through industrial production.

Today, the shelves of shops in the villages and supermarkets in

Kampala and other major towns are full of locally made
products. The revitalization of the industrial sector has greatly
contributed to employment opportunities, tax revenue and
improvement of the countrys balance of payment position. As
a result, the manufacturing sector today employs 1.2 million
workers compared 15,588 workers in 1986. In addition, because
of consistent growth in industry and other sectors, Uganda has
posted an annual average economic growth rate of about 6
percent for the last 15 years. Revenue collection has also
grown from an insignificant Shs.5 billion in 1986 to Shs.11.23
trillion in 2015/16. This exponential growth in revenue, has
enabled us to expand infrastructure, build schools as well as
hospitals among other important government projects. The
high annual rates of growth mentioned above, were achieved in
spite of high production costs caused by infrastructure
bottlenecks such as scarce and expensive electricity, poor
roads and railways and the high interest rates charged by the
profiteering commercial banks.

Now that we have, finally, ensured the supply of more

electricity, 5,156 kms of tarmack roads have been constructed,
an additional 3,539 kms are being constructed with others
planned in the next 3 years, we have plans to build a modern
railway system and we are working on the capitalization of
Uganda Development Bank (UDB) so as to get low interest
rates for manufacturing and agriculture, we are going to score
much higher rates of growth.
With more electricity, better roads and the other efforts
mentioned above, we have only been having the problem of
corruption by public servants and some of the politicians. It is
these that have been either blocking or delaying investors.

I want to repeat for all to hear that any politician or civil servant
who involves himself or herself in corruption will have
endangered himself or herself. We shall not only wait to catch
you red-handed as has fortunately happened recently. Even by
auditing your actions, we can know that you are corrupt. Why
should you delay authorization of an investment when you
know very well that millions of our children need jobs? Do we
need any other evidence if the investor has the money and you
delay him? Delaying a credible investor is, ipsofacto,
corruption. We shall not need any other evidence.

Uganda is one of the richest countries in the world. Apart from

our massive agricultural potential, which we are exploiting
more and more, you will soon see the big industrial projects of
agro-processing and industries based on our minerals wealth.
Kilembe will be revived to produce copper for our cables
industry, the making of transformers for electricity and,
eventually, even the turbines. Soon the fertilizer, steel and
glass industries will be built in the Tororo area. Cement factories
will be built in Karamoja. This is not to talk of Cobalt in Kasese,
tin and columbite in the Ankole-Kigyezi area, a new steel
industry in the Kigyezi area, etc. We are vigorously hunting the
criminals on the lakes to restore the fish stocks on our lakes.
The UPDF has taken over the hunting of the criminals on the
lakes. It is my hope that in about a years time, the fish stocks
will have recovered so that the 21 fish factories that we had
attracted, can be revived. More factories, means more workers.
We should not continue to talk of the current 1.2 million
workers who are working in the factories we have attracted.
We need jobs for maybe 15 million workers. The Workers
Movement, the NRM Youth Movement, the Students Movement,
the National Youth Council, all the political leaders should be
bakaambwe (to be very harsh) to anybody who delays any
factory or any other investment because the future prosperity
of Uganda depends on those factories.

Building the Nation through Good Work Ethics which is the

theme for this years Labour Day celebrations is relevant to our
efforts of consolidating the economic gains made so far and
also using the same as a foundation for realising the Vision of
transforming the Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern
and prosperous country.

Work is a central tenet of the NRM vision of transforming

Uganda into a modern and prosperous country. Accordingly,
the NRM government has since 1986, left no stone unturned in
creating the conditions necessary for unlocking the full
potential of citizens.

Ladies and gentlemen, the total land area of Uganda is

241,550.7sq.kms, of which 41,027sq.kms are open water
bodies. While the 200,523.2sq.kms are land, about 144,374
sq.kms or 72 percent of that land area is arable; but apparently,
land under farming is 91,151.8 sq.kms. However, it is not
uncommon to find a homestead living on arable land but
surrounded by bush and not a garden of food or cash crops.
Even the farmed land is not farmed optimally. Very little
diligence is put in the effort. This unfortunate phenomenon
confirms that apart from the occasional harsh weather
conditions, the choice for easy life and aversion to work is also
responsible for hunger and poverty. Owing to our good weather
and other priorities, we had not, in the past, paid much
attention to irrigation beyond the rehabilitation of Doho
Irrigation Scheme, Olweny, Mobuku and Agoro.
Since the bad weather of last year, however, we have began to
focus on irrigation. We have already distributed solar powered
water pumps in the following areas: Kandago (Kabale), Nyadri
(Maracha), Inomo (Apac), Kololo (Adjumani), Kabira (Rakai) and
Kibenyeya (Hoima). These limited efforts show that drought is a
curable problem.

There is also laziness among public officers which greatly

undermines service delivery. Some public officers report late
for duty and when they report they spend most of the office
time chatting on social media platforms like Facebook and
whatsApp. The other challenge that we must address in order
to improve productivity of our labour is the problem of
alcoholism and gambling. Although the alcohol and gambling
companies contribute substantial amount of taxes to the
national treasury, I note that the uncontrolled consumption of
alcohol and gambling has negative effects on attitude to work
and productivity; yet the only way of getting out of poverty is
through work.

I, therefore, would like to urge all leaders to mobilize

communities to appreciate the importance of hard work and the
dangers of reckless consumption of alcohol and gambling. The
Permanent Secretaries should also put in place productivity
enhancing and monitoring measures in their ministries in order
to stop the culture of laziness in the Public Service. We are
considering the regulation of drinking and gambling hours.
Drinking and gambling at any hour of the day is excessive
liberalism.

We are aware that good nutrition, health, education and

innovation are crucial for enhanced labour productivity and
economic progress. The government will continue with
programmes aimed at strengthening agriculture, health service
delivery, skills development and innovative research and
development.
AGRICULTURE
Regarding agriculture, we are going to step up measures of
increasing production for food and cash crops by assisting
farmers to access key farm inputs, livestock, seeds, breeding
and planting materials. Above, I talked of gravity irrigation
around Mount Elgon and the Rwenzori. I also talked of solar
powered pumps. You can, however, also use simple irrigation
techniques.

The advice I am giving here is the experience of a practical

farmer. For long, I had been listening to endless complaints of
our farmers about loss of crops to drought but with no solution
in sight from our people in the departments of agriculture and
water. Therefore, I decided, in October 2016, to go back to the
roots of the NRM at a place called Kawumu in Mawale parish of
Makulubita Sub-county in Luweero District. At Kawumu, I have
been able to demonstrate that water drawn manually from a
swamp or pond can, with the use of waste plastic bottles, be
used for drip irrigation. I had actually learnt this technique
from one of our farmers in Ngai sub-county, Oyam district
known as Beatrice Okello. Recently, I repeated the same efforts
on the Presidents farm at Kityerera in Mayuge district.
According to scientist Mafabi of the Ministry of Water, before
some citizens invaded the wetlands (enfuunjo, ebisharara,
ebibari, entobazi, Acholi-nota, Lugbara-Aya, Teso-isama), the
night and morning mist (omutoondo, oruho, olufu, Acholi-
lupuru, Lugbara-apurusa, Teso-ekuna) would do the drip
irrigation for us, but do it naturally.

HEALTH
An unhealthy labour force cannot support effective national
production. The government will continue with programmes
aimed at improving the health of our people. These include:

(a) Continued construction of new hospitals and health

centres;
(b) Increasing drug supplies in health facilities including ARVs;
(c) Consolidating the immunisation efforts;
(d) Increasing HIV/AIDS awareness especially among young
people;
(e) Stepping up efforts to eradicate malaria;
(f) Intensifying the fight against non-communicable diseases
such as cancer and diabetes.

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION

Equipping our young people with cutting-edge skills and
competencies is a sine qua non for employability, sustained
economic growth and effective competition in the global
market.

Ladies and gentlemen, a total of up to 150,000 jobs will be

created under the Albertine Development Project. It is
estimated that 15,000 of these will be direct jobs, 35,000
indirect jobs and about 100,000 induced jobs. The induced jobs
are those jobs created as a result of wealth created through the
redistribution of oil revenue in the economy. Many of these jobs
will require specialised skills.

We are going to step up efforts of addressing the skills gaps

and mismatches in the labour market. To this end, we have
already addressed the problem of access by building schools
and other institutions. Our focus now will be on improving the
quality of learning outcomes.
To address the skills mismatch, we are going to emphasise
more work based learning models like apprenticeship. The
Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development has already
developed a National Apprenticeship Framework. You the
workers, our grand children the youth and their parents, all of
you need to be reminded of the NRM advice. The sectors of the
economy are four: commercial agriculture, industries, services
and ICT. By local and foreign actors investing in these four, is
the major way of creating more jobs for the youth, expanding
the tax base and producing more goods and services.
Therefore, politically, we should not tolerate anybody who
delays or undermines, in any way, the pace of investments.

Before I conclude on the issues of labour, I would like to inform

you that Uganda has been elected to the governing council of
International Labour Organisation (ILO). We now have a
functioning Industrial Court and we are also paid up members
of International Labour Organisation (ILO). I am informed that
the Minimum Wage Board has concluded its report and
submitted it to Cabinet. Cabinet will decide on what type of
minimum wage we should take.

The recent wave of crime in Kampala and in some villages

around Masaka should not scare you. The NRM defeated bigger
enemies such as Kony, ADF in the Rwenzori region, the rebels
in Teso and the Karimojong cattle rustlers from whom we took
40,000 rifles. Anybody to imagine that urban based criminals
using the easy means of movement and communication
created by the NRM (boda-bodas, matatus, mobile phones, etc)
and hiding in the large number of people in the towns, will
disturb our peace sustainably, is to fool oneself. Using
improved technical means (e.g. cameras in towns) and, if
necessary, the mobilization of our massive reserves, we shall
destroy anybody involved either directly or indirectly.
I have already ordered the security forces how, if necessary,
this can be done cost-effectively. Therefore, the only safe exit
for those who have already stained their hands with the blood
of Ugandans or committed the despicable crime of rape, is to
surrender and answer for your crimes in the courts of law. Any
further self-deception on your part that you can escape justice
will end in your losing your life. That was the mistake of the
law breakers in Kasese and Bundibugyo recently, the
Karimojong cattle rustlers and the Kony and ADF terrorists in
the past. I appeal to the courts to stop giving bails to these
criminals. That giving of bail is part of the problem.

On the issue of the shortage of food in some areas that hit us

last season, my advice is to use relief very carefully for two
reasons. The first reason is that relief can kuremaza (disorient)
our people away from production to, instead, get in the habit of
waiting for relief. Secondly, Ugandans should know that when
we are eating relief food, we should know that we are chewing
a road, a school or a health centre. Therefore, relief should
only be for the really unavoidable situations. It should not be
used by politicians for cheap popularity or frivolously (let us
take the government food since it is available) or even for
corruption by government officials (get the food for selling
claiming that it is for relief).

Finally, I would like to say that work is the only way to get
people out of poverty. I, therefore, urge all Ugandans to develop
a positive attitude to work. The NRM government will continue
to provide an enabling environment for establishing businesses
and creation of employment.

Once again, I wish to salute all the workers of Uganda.

I thank you.