At the conclusion of the seven-day-long introspection retreat of Cabinet, Permanent Secretaries and members of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the secretariat of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), President Museveni led the team to Mzee George Matoogo’s farm.
Located in Ngoma in Nakaseke district, the members listen attentively to Matoogo’s wealth creation journey.
He had no land. He started with only 50 cows. He had inherited the 50 indigenous cows from his father in 1980.
Determined to turn-around his journey, Matoogo began squatting on other people’s land until he bought his own four-square miles. Then he settled and expanded. Mixing exotic and indigenous cow breeds, Mzee Matoogo now produces about 900 litres of milk per day.
He is now capable of earning sh57 million per day if he completely shifts from traditional farming to what our leader, President Museveni, always refers to as “commercial agriculture with calculation”.
At the closure of the retreat, the father of the nation, Museveni, told Ministers and other officials that: “Our message remains consistent regarding the importance of creating wealth for socio-economic transformation. Let’s all speak the same language of generating income at the household level and bringing our people into the money economy.”
All the NRM manifestos, the President said, have revolved around how to change a “traditional society into a modern one, and all the funds we send to the parishes (PDM, Emyooga, etc.) are geared toward helping our people enter the money economy.”
Over the years NRM has managed to sail Uganda through the most violent and turbulent storms in our history. Through this time, NRM has been tried, tested and found worthy of continued leadership of this country.
In line with the principled approach to economic development and growth, under the 2021-2026 manifesto, the NRM party selected five priority areas of focus—Creating Wealth and Jobs; Delivering Education and Health; Ensuring Justice and Equity; Protecting Life and Property and Achieving Economic and Political Integration.
At the launch of the manifesto in the run-up to the 2021 general elections, President Museveni, who is also the chairman of NRM, said that: “The mantle of securing the future of Uganda is so great a task for one to play bets on. It is not a gamble. It is a matter which requires lifelong commitment, unending sacrifice and vast experience. NRM is the only political organisation that can be trusted with the sacred responsibility of securing Uganda’s future.”
So, the timing of the Cabinet, permanent secretaries and the NRM’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) retreat in Kyankwanzi district was indeed a good gesture. It was also an opportunity for our leaders to measure the manifesto implementation ahead of the 2026 general elections.
To give a hint at what transpired, President Museveni said that he “appealed to all the NRM cadres to clearly guide our people to adopt the four principles of the NRM but start with the third one: Social-economic transformation. How? By everybody joining the four sectors of the economy.”
According to President Museveni, the four sectors of the economy include commercial agriculture; industries (big or small); services (hotels, transport, professional services, shops, etc.); and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (Business Process Outsourcing -BPOs).
Once the four sectors are embraced by citizens, Museveni said, job creation and wealth creation will be spurred.
“The NRM’s manifestos all revolve around how to change a traditional society into a modern one, and all the funds we send to the parishes (Parish Development Model (PDM), Emyooga, etc.) are geared toward helping our people enter the money economy,” he said.
So, the public service leaders’ introspection retreat in Kyankwanzi acted as a yardstick for all leaders to understand the need to fully implement the manifesto.
The retreat also acted as a routine introspection of public servants, Cabinet, permanent secretaries, and NRM leaders to appraise performance and rectify pending issues that have acted as roadblocks to the full realization of the implementation of the NRM manifesto.
The retreat also provided an opportunity to realign Government goals and strategies to ensure they resonate with the voters’ needs and aspirations and help improve the NRM’s fortunes in the next elections.
Today, corruption, governance, inefficiency in public service delivery and streamlining coordination are big issues at the moment.
The need to restore the National Resistance Army (NRA) heritage is the other issue that the retreat tackled.
While officially opening the retreat on July 8, President Museveni said they were now coming in directly to restore this NRA heritage.
“When the NRA came on the scene, all this misconduct stopped,” he stated, highlighting the public execution of those who committed atrocities against the ordinary people such as the notorious Zaburoni.
Museveni said this was done in order to maintain discipline and integrity within the army, which was renamed the Uganda People’s Defence Forces after the 1995 Constitution was drawn up.
“The young people, with their passion-driven outlook, and the victims of corruption have a chance to lead this effort. We urge the judiciary to support us by placing corruption, especially embezzlement in the category of offenses that are not considered for bail,” he said.
The author is the Deputy RDC Manafwa and member of the Kasangati Rotary Club
