Manifesto Week: highlight of Govt’s commitment to service delivery promise

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OPINION

By Willis Bashaasha

On November 15, 2024, the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Secretary General of the NRM party and the Minister for the Presidency launched Manifesto Week, a political accountability event through which the government updates Ugandans on the progress of its service delivery to the citizens.

Held annually, Manifesto Week is organised and moderated by the Manifesto Implementation Unit at the Presidency. 

This is a media interactive platform through which the Government avails citizens with an opportunity to be updated on the progress of the performance on the social contract of 2021-26.

This contract was well laid out in our Manifesto and constituted the many pledges that would push our country’s socioeconomic transformation agenda within this political term.

Based on this, the Manifesto Week is programmed by the presidency through Cabinet to take stock of the Manifesto commitments and achievements, identify implementation challenges faced and share a way forward on how to achieve full implementation within this term.

As a methodology to achieve the above, during Manifesto Week, we popularise these achievements through presentations by Cabinet Ministers with their Heads of Departments and Agencies of the respective ministries to the media.

These entail respective performances or achievements under their dockets. These Cabinet presentations kicked off on November 19, and ran up to December 5, 2024. This tells the country, more so our party and the citizens on the journey so far moved on the respective commitments.  It, therefore, serves well to demystify the propaganda from the detractors that ‘the Government has done nothing’.

At the Local Government level, the leadership is enjoined to break down further these achievements and translate them into how these various achievements and other policy changes manifest within their areas of jurisdiction. This is equally done through the use of various platforms at their disposal (media, district councils, barazas, among others).

By holding the manifesto week, The Government enables the citizens to appreciate the extent to which the performance of the social contract and its impact on the citizens, as an agent of the party, accounts to the party and its members, and popularises these achievements because more often than not a lot is done yet little is communicated. In the end, this lessens the burden of the President to explain everything hence allowing him space to focus on his strategic initiatives for the country.

The key milestone highlights

The full details of the achievements in these five thematic areas were exhaustively presented by the political and technical heads of the various service delivery implementing MDAs during the course of Manifesto Week.

Jobs and wealth creation

Within this term, direct jobs were created through the conventional sectors of the economy i.e. Manufacturing, services, tourism, the judiciary and energy sector; as well as the various poverty alleviation initiatives, including Emyooga, Youth Livelihood Programme, PDM and Women Entrepreneurship Programme. The multiplier effect of these initiatives, on the other hand, created 3.14 million jobs, underscoring the Government’s commitment to create jobs and reduce the poverty rates.

Under PDM, sh1.0594 trillion was appropriated to 10,594 PDM SACCOs countrywide, benefiting over 1,195,718 beneficiaries in 1,405,222 households across the country, who have so far received the Parish Revolving Fund (PRF).

In the agriculture sector, the Government’s interventions to increase food and cash crop production, livestock, fish volumes and improved agricultural support services have helped to increase the sector’s GDP from sh39.1 trillion in the FY 2021/22 to sh43.9 trillion in the FY 2022/23, representing a 5.1% growth and 24.6% contribution to total GDP. This growth is further witnessed by the value of coffee export earnings which have steadily increased from $416.19m in 2018/19 to $1.14b currently.

Health and Education

Nineteen (19) HCIIIs have been constructed in sub-counties that did not have any health facilities, while 381 HCIIs have been upgraded to HCIIIs.

The Government will complete 32 new HCIIIs by next year, on top of other key interventions. This heavy investment in the health sector is the reason the life expectancy for Ugandans has jumped from 65.8 in 2016 to now 67.7 years.

Under Education, the Government has completed the construction of 102 out of 117 secondary schools targeted under phase one of the UgIFT project representing an 87% achievement. This has since reduced the number of sub-counties without a Seed secondary school to just 100.

In the primary sector, the Government is undertaking a mapping exercise to establish the parishes without a primary school. This is in a bid to ensure that every parish in the country has a primary school.

The Government has also set up a task force for the establishment of Busoga University, with Mountains of the Moon University in Tooro also now fully taken over as some of the key interventions in the tertiary education sector. The Government is also starting Bunyoro University. Meanwhile, about 786.4 acres of land have been earmarked for setting up of a constituent College of Gulu University in Karamoja.

Judiciary

In the judicial sector, the coverage of courts across the country has increased to 70% up from 51% in 2021, hence increasing access to Judicial services. More recruitments and deployments of judicial officers across the country complement this target.

Infrastructure in Transport, Works, and Energy

The Government has constructed 21 road projects totalling 1,201.3km by mid-term, increasing Uganda’s cumulative paved road network to 6,529km. This represents 30 per cent of the total national road network and 82 per cent of the NDP III target. Also completed were three bridges on the national road network and three bridges on the District, Urban Community Access (DUCA) roads.

The Government also completed the construction of Hoima International Airport, while the President last month launched the 272km SGR from Malaba to Kampala, with a commitment to complete it in 48 months.

Compensation of the project’s 5,023 PAPs to the tune of sh151.65b is complete, availing the Government with 1,522.44 acres of project land needed. For the energy sector, Electricity Connectivity now stands at 60% for both on-grid and off-grid connections, with on-grid connections reaching 22% as of December 2023.

Approximately 2,300,000 household connections have been established, while for the first time in Uganda’s history, the West Nile sub-region has been connected to the National Grid. The two substations of Nebbi and Arua were officially commissioned on August 3, 2024. Currently, 1,770 out of 2,075 sub-county headquarters have been connected to electricity.

ICT, Security & EAC Integration

Currently, the country’s internet penetration is at 66.44%, up from 25.03% in 2016 while the teledensity is at 72% (2022) up from 61.2% in 2016.

A total of 4,353.87 km of Fiber Optic cable have been laid across 57 Districts of Uganda; helping to grow Internet subscriptions from 8.04million in 2016 to 23.77m by 2022. The price of the internet has also reduced from $205 in FY 2021/22 to $35 and $70 for the MDAs and the public respectively in FY 2023/24— hence easing business.

The Government has also maintained the security of persons, property and national borders of which all these gains would not be achieved in a troubled non-peaceful environment.

As part of integration efforts and promotion of cross-border trade, eight (08) One-Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) have been constructed and are operational in Mpondwe, Ggoli, Malaba, Busia, Mutukula, Mirama Hills, Katuna, and Elegu, among many other interventions of promoting integration and trade.

These have substantially reduced the clearance lead times for goods and persons crossing the borders by 84%.

All these and more commitments, show the Government’s dedication towards securing the future of every Ugandan as was promised in the campaigns.

Our duty, therefore, is to support this noble duty by playing our part in protecting and popularising these registered gains.

I thank our partners, the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, and whoever spared time to participate in the Manifesto Week in whichever capacity.

For God and my Country. 

The writer is the Director, Manifesto Implementation Unit, Office of the President