Government stops privatisation

Mar 16, 2015

Government will not privatize more institutions, President Yoweri Museveni has said.


By Vision Reporter

Government will not privatize more institutions, President Yoweri Museveni has said.


“We are not going to allow more privatisation of government institutions. If the public officials occupying public bodies do not perform, we will remove them and replace them. Next time, people may even propose privatisation of State House. No… no. That cannot be. We must ask these people why they are not performing,” the President Museveni said.

The President made the remarks on Monday while presiding over a high level government retreat taking stock of performance of various sectors at the Office of  the Prime Minister in Kampala.


The President said that Government service delivery was lagging behind in most crucial sectors because of failure by Government Departments to stick to the set national plans and priorities.

Museveni singled out the health, education, water and environment sectors as well as well as the road works and investment sectors as some of the areas that have not been given the deserved attention resulting in underperformance and poor service delivery by government.

He observed that although the health sector has registered positive results due mass immunisation which has also resulted in drastic fall in maternal and infant mortality, Ugandans continue to die from preventable diseases due poor hygiene, nutrition, immorality and behaviour change related infections yet the relevant organs are not doing enough to sensitize the masses on how to avoid contracting the diseases.

“Take example of the recent typhoid outbreak. It started as a small matter in Arua it has now spread to 15 districts yet by merely promoting hygiene, you can control the spread of this dangerous disease,” he noted.

Regarding the education sector, the President wondered why government should spend sh900b on Universal Primary Education (UPE) Programme yet more children continue to drop out of school due to levying of fees in UPE and USE schools adding that “we should get an answer and if you think it needs to be restructured, we do that; and you think we should scrap the programme, then we divert those funds to other sectors.”

The President instructed the Minister of Works and Transport, Eng. John Byabagambi to strengthen the monitoring of the weigh bridges as overloaded vehicle are reportedly the leading cause of the quick tear and wear of Ugandan roads.

He said that government was in a process of procuring new road equipment from Japan that will be given to all Local Governments throughout the country to maintain the district roads. He, however, warned Local Government leaders against the reported hiring out of government road equipment to private contractors which, he said, mounted to abuse of office.

The President further asked all the relevant organs to design a strategic National Plan on availing water throughout the country as well as on how to conserve the environment.


 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});