Today, President Yoweri Museveni will address the country with the State of the Nation Address (SONA), during which he will highlight the accomplishments, challenges, and plans of the government.

The address normally sets the tone for the upcoming fiscal year, creating expectations and aspirations among the citizens.

New Vision takes a look back at the previous SONA presentation made by President Museveni in June 2022 and some of the actual outcomes a year later.

Economic growth

During the SONA presentation, President Museveni noted that the locusts, the rising waters of the Lakes, the landslides, the terrorist bombs, the pandemic, and the rising commodity prices caused by the Ukrainian war had a significant impact on the performance of the economy.

However, President Museveni said despite a combination of these factors, the economy remained resilient. Last year, figures from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) indicated that the economy grew by 4.6% in 2021/2022.

Chris Mukiza, executive director at Ubos notes that over the period under review leading to this year’s SONA, the economy performed better than in 2022.

“The preliminary estimates of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) indicate that the economy grew by 5.3% in the fiscal year 2022/23 compared to a revised growth of 4.6% in 2021/22. The size of the economy in nominal terms increased to sh184.2 trillion in 2022/23 from sh162.8 trillion in 2021/22,” Mukiza said.

In terms of sector contribution to GDP, the services sector continued to be the biggest contributor to GDP, with a share of 42.6% in 2022/23 compared to 41.6% in 2021/22, Mukiza said.

This was followed by the industry sector with a share of 26.1% in 2022/23 compared to 26.7% in the previous financial year. The agriculture sector contributed 24% in 2022/23, a similar contribution registered in 2021/22. 

“Taxes on products grew by 6.3% in 2022/23 compared to an earlier growth of 7.5% registered in the previous financial year,” Mukiza added.

Inflation declines to single digit

The COVID-19 economic lockdown disrupted supply and production chains thereby resulting in inflation. During the SONA presentation in June, Uganda’s inflation was at 6.8%. By October last year, inflation had surged to 10.7%, a trend that saw the government cut back on spending on key sectors of the economy to inflation.  

At the time, President Museveni noted that the rise in inflation was caused by external factors. As such, the proposal of introducing subsidies to cushion vulnerable households against inflation was not considered. 

“Cutting taxes or subsidies, especially on imports, is suicidal because our people may buy carelessly and we end up draining our forex reserves. Moreover, cutting taxes or subsidizing, means taking away money from planned projects and putting it into consumption – fuel, bread, among others,” Museveni explained.

However, over the review period, prices of some of the commodities such as fuel significantly dipped. For instance, a liter of fuel declined to sh5,058 in May 2023 compared to sh5,381 in May 2022 according to Ubos national average price estimates. 

Diesel declined from sh5,375 per liter to sh4,988 in the same period. A liter of cooking oil cooled from sh11,050 in May 2022 to sh9,364 in May 2023. Key commodities saw their prices fall and Uganda's annual inflation fell to 6.2% in May.

Parish Development Model and job creation

To address unemployment and promote economic growth, President Museveni emphasized the need for youth to work in groups or SACCOs to benefit from government programs.

The Emyooga and the Parish Development Model (PDM) are essentially last-mile poverty alleviation programs being implemented by the government to ensure that Ugandans still in the subsistence economy transit into the money economy.

President Museveni said the result of the PDM is “to tap the production capacity of all the 7 million houses in agriculture, relying on the 7 high-value commodities of; coffee, fruits, dairy products, poultry, pigs, fish-farming and food growing for those of 4 acres and less.

“The ones with land that is more than 4 acres, can, in addition, grow sugarcane, cotton, maize, tobacco, tea, cassava, bananas, ranching, among others because the country needs these products for industry, food or as inputs into the intensive agriculture,” Museveni suggested.

By the end of quarter four disbursement, permanent secretary to the treasury Ramathan Ggoobi noted that more than sh1trillion had been released under the PDM. 

“We have released sh264.5b to the ministry of finance for the PDM (in quarter four). This makes the total release sh1.5b. This money is going to be sent to all parish accounts in Uganda that are fully ready to implement PDM. This is a government grant it’s going to stay on the account and revolve around. It’s not coming back to the treasury,” he said.

Irrigation schemes

The President’s SONA also highlighted the importance of irrigation for this ending financial year. 

“In the coming financial years, we are going to intensify the modest efforts we have already started, in connection with irrigation. With irrigation, we have worked with the private sector to produce solar-powered water pumps that the rich farmers can buy and engage in mini-irrigation, farm by farm.

“Once the solar-powered irrigation pumps are on the market, the Government will buy them for some of the co-operatives or farming villages, where one pump can be shared by several small farmers. We shall continue also developing the mega-irrigation schemes of the Mobuku type. Currently, 150 solar-powered water pumps have been imported. By the end of next year, 687 solar-powered water pumps will have been imported.”

In 2019, the government borrowed Euros 101.8m (about sh390b) from the UK Export Finance for the development of solar-powered irrigation and water supply system project.

The government is expected to counter-fund the three-year project with Euros 11m (about 43.1b) through the annual budget – bringing the total estimates to about sh440b. 

The Ministry of Water and Environment, the owners of the project, contracted Nexus Green Limited to design, supply and install about 687 solar irrigation systems sites to enhance agricultural productivity.

In February this year, the parliamentary committee on environment and natural resources led by Emmanuel Otaala inspected the progress of the selected project sites implemented by Nexus Green.

He noted that the project should be able to increase agricultural production and productivity which will culminate in increased household incomes and improved livelihoods of the farming communities.

“This project is meant to cover the whole country but this project is behind schedule. It should be winding up by July 2024. Some of the sites we visited are hardly done,” he said.

“On average what has been done is only 19%. We don’t think the contractor will be able to cover the whole country by July. The other issue is the lack of coordination between the Ministry of Water and Environment and the contractor,” he explained.

Fight against corruption

During SONA, President Museveni also explained that growing cases of corruption had denied several services to Ugandans. 

“Another danger to our rapid social-economic transformation is the corruption of political actors and public servants who do not only steal government money, thereby denying the population the services that money would have provided, but they also parasite on our business people,” he stated. 

“Business people and investors do not feel beholden to these parasites. Expose both their requests for bribes and their schemes for frustrating those who do not pay bribes. Action will be taken for the benefit of the business atmosphere in the country,” Museveni warned.

A section of the public waits to see how President Museveni, who is the appointing authority, will handle top government officials if found culpable of mishandling relief items for the people of Karamoja.