What Museveni talked about in latest address

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 10:16 PM 

President ends address

And with that comes the end of the President's address. His speech is then summarized in Luganda.

We will share the detailed speech here once we get a hold of it.
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 10:15 PM 

Drought in Brazil to blame

In his concluding remarks, Museveni says the high prices of coffee "are not our work" but instead a result of global forces, particularly the drought in Brazil.

South America's largest and easternmost country is experiencing its worst drought in over seven decades, which has led to smaller-than-expected harvests and has threatened to increase global coffee prices. 
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 10:09 PM 

'They do no or little work'

The President points to research arguing for the rationalization of agencies. He highlights the following justifications:

▪️ They do no or little work "yet for us we are working for the mass line...so we are incompatible".
▪️ They don't have the capacity. They duplicate the work of ministries — doing so most expensively.
▪️ They were getting corrupt and possibly poorly supervised.
▪️ They cannot have adequate networks to do extension work.
▪️ They do not do saniphytosanitary certification. It's the agriculture ministry that does.
▪️ Apparently, UCDA has only been grading screens.
▪️ Now that government extension workers are better paid, will wake up.

"Therefore, it seems that these agencies were not necessary from the beginning," says Museveni, going on to commend the NRM MPs that "put an end to these parasitic agencies that were consuming a lot of money".
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 9:55 PM 

📲  Watch President's address in-app

Click here to watch Museveni's address in our app (ViDE).
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 9:46 PM 

One official (Hajji Kasujja), who asked for "protection" at the beginning of his candid comments before the President, makes damning revelations about what he describes as fraudulent activities within UCDA.

He names names in his bombshell remarks.
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 9:37 PM 

'Blessing in disguise'

One MP says that UCDA has not done enough to educate or sensitize the people of his area on better coffee farming practices.

He also voices misconceptions within his constituency on the move to mainstream UCDA into the agriculture ministry.

He says the rationalization of UCDA is "a blessing in disguise".
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 9:30 PM 

'Stop deceiving our people'

This was Museveni's recent message to groups he referred to as "negative chauvinists" and "anti-rationalization crusaders".

He spoke about the "sustained lies about the policy of rationalization of the parasitic agencies that are irrational".

Here is what he wrote late last month.
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 9:22 PM 

'No UCDA, no coffee?'

The OWC coordinators embolden the President's stance against the notion by some sections of the public, including politicians, that "no UCDA, no coffee".

The President has previously come out strongly to defend  the mainstreaming of UCDA into the agriculture ministry, as part of the rationalization process, where its functions shall be undertaken by a department. This would be achieved under the National Coffee (Amendment) Bill 2024.

This plan has faced heated opposition by some politicians and farmers alike, who insist that the merger would drive down coffee prices.

Recently, Museveni said "it is fraudulent for NAADS, UCDA, etc., to claim that the big boost in agricultural production is because of their efforts and that if they are not there, production will suffer".

"With the coffee, it is the NRM that revived and expanded its production... If there are problems like the one with tea now, we shall sit with the stakeholders, discuss and get solutions using rational solutions," he said.
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 9:11 PM 

Meanwhile, after the matter is raised, the President says that they are aware and looking into the reports that some coffee nursery bed operators were not paid money during the distribution exercise.
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 9:00 PM 

Operation Wealth Creation

The President says that when they noticed that nearly 70 per cent of Ugandan homesteads were still outside the money economy, he introduced the Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) in 2013.

Here, the army would be used to distribute millions of coffee seedlings and other planting and breeding materials to farmers around the country, including the areas of Luwero, Masaka, Nakaseke and Nakasongola.

He invites OWC coordinators to expound on the nationwide operation.

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 8:54 PM 

'Doing no work'

The President commends scientists who are outside of government agencies such as UCDA on low pay and "we the reformers" who now go and propagate and advise on wealth creation.

He goes on to say that the likes of Diary Development Authority (DDA) and National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) were "doing no work" despite their employees getting a lot of pay.

Museveni's argument is that they did not fulfil the targets of the NRM government, especially the third NRM principle of social-economic transformation, which entails working to get all homesteads into the money economy.
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 8:46 PM 

'Temporary measure'

"These side agencies — UNRA (Uganda National Roads Authority), UCDA (Uganda Coffee Development Authority), etc — were "a temporary measure" that he accepted at the beginning of his government.

He says some of these agencies were started when the economy was down and the public servants were being paid low salaries.

In previous engagements on this debate, Museveni said: "Since some people respond to only the mercenary logic of only working hard for personal remuneration such as pay, we tactically agreed that some government efforts could be executed outside the departmental structures of the government, with the workers there paid higher salaries than those in the government departments".
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 8:43 PM 

'Full economy'

President Museveni underlines that while the colonialists were focused on the 3Cs and 3Ts as Uganda's only cash crops, right now the country is focusing on "60 efforts" in an expanded economy.

"Ours is a full economy, not a partial economy," he says.
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 8:40 PM 

'A disgrace'

Museveni says the groups that have been rallying the masses against the rationalization of government agencies are a "disgrace" and adds that he feels "embarrassed" engaging in the ongoing divisive debate on the subject, especially on coffee.
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 8:37 PM 

'You only need your phone'

Again, you can watch the President's address on your phone HERE.

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 8:30 PM 

President Museveni says his group set out on a mission to revive the previous "small island economy" of the 3Cs (coffee, cotton, and copper) and 3Ts (tea, tobacco, and tourism), which he said represented a very small proportion of the Ugandan families at the time.

Back in colonial-era Uganda, the traditional mainly non-money economy had a modest change that mutated it into an "enclave economy", which, according to Museveni, means an island of pseudo-modernity surrounded by a sea of backwardness. 

He says that with their subsequent 10-point programme, they expanded the Ugandan economy.
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 8:24 PM 

📲  Watch President's address in-app

Click here to watch Museveni's address in our app (ViDE).
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 8:16 PM 

 BREAKING NEWS 

Museveni begins address to nation

President Yoweri Museveni has started his address to the nation.

Speaking from State House Nakasero in Kampala, he gets right to business, saying that he is to talk about the "indiscipline, lack of patriotism and possible criminality" of some actors.

He then rolls back for some historical context on where his student movement back in the day started, during which they agreed that "an enclave economy" was not ideal for Uganda's development. They, therefore, set out to implement their vision. A new one.
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 7:35 PM 

'Please tune in'

"Fellow Ugandans, especially the Bazzukulu. I will address the nation tomorrow [Thursday] evening at 8pm on all the major TV and radio stations. Please tune in."

That, up there, is what President Museveni posted on social media platform X — on which he has a following of 3.4 million people — last evening around this time.
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 7:33 PM 

Good evening everyone!

Hello to you reading this. We are just through the mid-point of this hour and are only less than half-an-hour away from tonight's scheduled address by President Yoweri Museveni to the nation.

As per the communication yesterday (Wednesday) from the President's press team, we don't know what exactly he will be talking about other than it being about "matters of national importance". Of course a lot has been happening in the country and you, dear reader, would naturally form your own idea around what you think Mr President will touch on in his address.

I will be right here to listen in and pick out extracts from what we shall hear him say and present it on this rolling page. It's manual stuff, so bear with me: kindly refresh the page every once in a while to see the updates.

Meanwhile, ahem, grabbed your cup of coffee yet?