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Swearing-in Speech of H.E. President Yoweri Museveni

H.E. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni giving his swearing-in speech on May 12, 2006

Today is an occasion of some unique importance for Uganda. Ever since 1986, when the National Resistance Movement (NRM) ended decades of State-inspired extra-judicial killings that accounted for the death of 800,000 Ugandans between 1966 and 1986, we introduced popular democracy based on a no-party model. In order to defeat the almost one-century-old sectarianism that had been fomented among our people and had been partially responsible for the upheavals that gripped Uganda, we avoided the immediate re-introduction of multiparty democracy. This model was not well understood abroad although it healed our people of sectarianism based on religious sects and tribes. We ignored the pressures from outside until we were convinced that the mindset of people had changed. Last year, following an extensive constitutional review, the people of Uganda, after a referendum, decided to, at least, go for multiparty democracy. All restrictions on the old political parties were removed and new ones were formed. On February 23, 2006, we held presidential and parliamentary elections based on multipartyism. The National Resistance Movement (NRM) political organization emerged winner in the first round for both President and Parliament.

I thank the people of Uganda for, again, putting trust in the NRM and me. We led you through decades of struggle against the killers and we have led you through the phase of reconstruction and resistance against externally supported terrorism. In spite of all these trials and tribulations, the NRM has time and again led you to victory, reconstruction and quite an enviable rate of economic growth.

By 1986, the economy of Uganda had totally collapsed. For instance, between 1983 and 1985, the economy further declined at a rate of minus 3.9% per annum. The inflation rate in the financial year 1985/86 was 240% per annum but in the financial year 2005/06, the average inflation rate is 6.7% per annum. Since 1986, the size of the economy has more than tripled to about $10b, growing at an average rate of 6.3% per annum. The proportion of the people living under poverty has shrunk from 56% to 38%. Primary school enrolment has climbed from 2.5 million to 7.6
million students. The student population in secondary schools has jumped from 122,868 in 1986 to 855,346 in 2005. University enrolment has grown from 6,579 to 57,000 students today. We had one state university in 1986. We now have a total of 18 universities (including private ones).

As a consequence, the structure of the economy is slowly changing. In 1986,
the share of industry in total GDP was 11%. It is now 20%. The economic performance and the resultant social changes could have been much better if it
was not for four factors including:

• Externally orchestrated terrorism in northern Uganda;
• Under spending on defence;
• Corruption and slowness in decision-making in the public service, and;
• Policy mistakes caused by a combination of political paralysis within the NRM system as well as external misguided meddling.

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A combination of such policy mistakes and drought has, in the last one year, caused severe electricity shortage causing the decline in our projected rate of GDP growth from 6.5% to 4.9%. Our plan to build two new dams for hydropower generation on the River Nile was disrupted by external meddling. We were told that Uganda was in “new danger” - “the danger of having
too much electricity”!! This is outrageous and unacceptable. Ugandans have seen for
themselves what we, the leaders, have always told them. Surrendering of sovereignty on decision-making is a very big mistake.

I want to assure Ugandans that such mistakes will never occur again under the leadership of the NRM. We are going to build two new dams in the next 42 months with or without the participation of outsiders in financing. Any external involvement will be strictly according to
our timetable. As soon as the new government is formed, we shall sit down
and prioritize expenditure in such a manner that solving the energy crisis is a
priority. There are other sites on the River Nile on which we, in the medium term, plan to build two new dams. There is Ayago North and Ayago South, for instance. As we complete plans for the construction of Bujagaali and Karuma dams, that will be the next project. We have rejected the policy of chasing the rise in demand for electricity. We shall, henceforth, anticipate the demand. In the meantime we are promoting the use of solar energy, energy-saving bulbs and
modernizing the transmission lines to stop electricity losses.

All the same, the talk of a GDP size of $10 for a country like Uganda with a size of the UK and a population of 28 million is still a joke. In the next five years, now that the negative consequences of sovereignty in decision-making are apparent to all Ugandans, it will be much easier to move faster so that we aim at
completely transforming our society from a Third World one to a First World one, in the medium term, to use the words of Lee Kwan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore. Among the aims stated in the NRM manifesto, some of the most prominent ones will be the following:

• All-round value-addition to all our exports (cotton, coffee, timber, beef, milk,
  fruits, phosphates, iron ore, etc..). It is commendable that good work has already been done on the side of fish 19 factories on Lake Victoria, while in 1986, there was not a single fish-processing plant anywhere in Uganda. The flower firms have also mushroomed and that those engaged in flower growing should be given maximum support.
  
  
• Since we now have a very educated work force, our society will be helped to
  use Information Communication Technology to create call centers and access outsourcing jobs. It is most pleasing to note that by 1995 about 11,000
  students would qualify for university entrance every year by getting two
  principal passes and a subsidiary. Last academic year, about 44,240 students
  qualified for university entrance. This increasingly large force needs not only
  academic qualifications, but qualifications in skills.
  
  
• The other target, in the coming five years, easier to achieve in my opinion, is
  to liquidate the remaining agricultural subsistence in the rural areas. Sixty-seven
  per cent of the homesteads, according to the 2002 census, still live by agricultural subsistence (producing for the stomach and not for cash). This sector needs to be commercialized. Modern needs go beyond food. The family needs money for decent clothing, health in some cases, improved houses, modern transport (motorcycle, car), communication (mobile phones), etc... To have only food without these amenities is not enough.

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All NRM MPs know that political survival at the polls will only come if the people in one’s constituency are earning money through the sale of their products. Given the land fragmentation of family holdings that has already taken place, there is therefore, need to shift production to more high value products such as fish farming, fruit growing, honey, dairy farming, pharmaceutical herbs, etc away from colonial cash crops of tobacco, cotton etc.
or other low value crops such as maize. These should be left to plantation producers as well as large scale, medium scale farmers who can make money out of them relying on the economies of scale. By solving the mistakes in the energy sector, adding value to our exports, liquidating subsistence farming and rationalizing production on the already fragmented farming landholdings, using the internet to access jobs abroad, we shall take giant strides in the next five years.

There is one additional gold mine - the innovations of our scientists. These need
maximum support. They have been struggling on their own. The work of Dr. Florence Muranga, for instance, of producing banana flour from bananas is finally getting support. Encourage all
others to continue. We shall come to their aid.

Uganda will develop faster as we intensify East African integration. Therefore, the East African goal of creating an East African Federation is sweet music to the revolutionaries of Uganda. It will resolve the strategic and economic bottlenecks of not only East Africa but the rest of Africa. A unified East Africa would be an important center of gravity for the whole of Africa.

We shall continue to work with our partners in the region to consolidate peace. We welcome the peace in Southern Sudan. We salute the SPLA and the Sudan Government for cooperating with us in uprooting the terrorists of Joseph Kony from Southern Sudan and northern Uganda. We hope that DRC, the SPLA, Sudan and the UN forces in Congo will work with us to capture the remnants now hiding in the Garamba National Park. The Congo government and the UN must also resolve the issue of eastern Congo being a safe haven for terrorists and negative forces from the Great Lakes region. We are ready and able to help in that task. The AU Peace and Security Council should handle this matter. Some of these issues are not as difficult to resolve as they appear.

The region, working with Burundi political parties, successfully resolved the issue of Burundi that had been paraded as insoluble. IGAD contributed decisively to the solution of the problem
of southern Sudan. The region had earlier on singly solved the problem of Amin and, working with the RPF, stopped the Genocide in Rwanda. The problem of minority governments in
southern Sudan was, primarily, solved by the freedom fighters from those countries, frontline states, socialist countries and other peace loving nations and the forces in the world at that time.

Similarly, the problems of Eastern Congo, Darfur, and Somalia, can be solved primarily by the respective African regional organizations. Now that Uganda is a fully-fledged multiparty
democracy, I encourage the opposition parties to play a constructive role. Political actors need to be the political, economic, social and moral “doctors” of a society. In order to be useful doctor
and treat sicknesses, you must, first and foremost, diagnose the sickness and, then, prescribe the correct medicine. Political parties need to expend more effort in analysis rather than propaganda and obscurantism.

Again, I thank the brothers from Africa who came to join us on this happy occasion. This big turn out of leaders is a good message for the world. Africa has
stood up, never to go down again.

Happy next five years to all Ugandans!

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