Mbabazi responsible for NRM failures, says Museveni
Jun 16, 2015
President Yoweri Museveni has spoken out about the presidential bid by the former prime minister Amama Mbabazi, saying he is equally responsible for what he claims to be NRM government failures.
President Yoweri Museveni has spoken out about the presidential bid by the former prime minister Amama Mbabazi, saying he is equally responsible for what he claims to be NRM government failures.
Below is the President’s full statement
Country men and women, I greet you, again. The other day, I addressed you about a forged document, which was circulating on social media. I hope you read the story. It was suspected that it was either authored or circulated by some people, some of whom have been arrested.
Now, since the name of the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi, my young brother, has been featuring in some of these stories, I decided to invite him, together with the Rt. Hon. Ruhakana Rugunda, for a meeting today (Monday) at 6:00pm, so that I ask him whether himself or people associated with him are involved in distributing these seditious, sectarian documents. We are due to have that meeting in one hour or so.
However, when I was returning from South Africa today, I was informed that the Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi had put on social media another story; how he wants to present himself as flag-bearer of the NRM. How he wants to compete for presidency in the next election.
Well, those are his decisions and I have nothing to do with those. However, our method of work does not involve that type of conduct. Neither the party nor the national Electoral Commission has announced the date for the election.
Therefore, I don’t think it is proper for the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi to waste your time with that premature electioneering. Those are issues that should be handled within the party at the right time, when the electoral commission of NRM and the national Electoral Commission has arranged for that election.
More importantly, however, is the substance of what the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi said. He made a number of points, which I would like to answer. First, he said he now wants to come and work for everybody.
Well, that is what NRM has been doing all this time. When we said education for all — UPE, USE, we meant working for everybody and, indeed we have done that.
The Rt. Hon. Mbabazi talks of restoring NRM and then he talks of democratic principles. Well, I must salute him. He could not escape some facts. He talked of increased prosperity,achieving peace, more respect by the international community and something we are proud of. I am glad he could not conceal those facts.
However, there is something he said that the country is tired, nursing a tired nation.
Well, the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi has been at the centre of our system, all these years. He was in the security services, Parliament. He was security minister for a long time, he was the NRM secretary general and eventually prime minister. Now, the weaknesses which are there and I am the one who is always criticising these weaknesses. For instance, the school charges, in spite of UPE; these are weaknesses that should be supervised by the prime minister and other leaders.
The issue of being tired, some sectors which are tired, the issue of corruption, all the other weakness I know very well and I keep talking about, restoring NRM. The Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi is the one who can tell us about these weaknesses.
Let us take the NRM, yes, NRM is not well organised as it should be. But Rt. Hon. Mbabazi was our secretary general for almost 10 years and that is why I moved that we amend the constitution and have a full-time secretary general.
On the issue of monitoring the Government system and re-invigorating it, that is the job of the prime minister, a position he occupied for some years. However, even before he was minister of security and later NRM secretary general, those are positions one could use and rectify mistakes. Where we put capable people, like in the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), the performance is excellent. I do not think the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi can say URA is tired.
KCCA, where we put Jennifer Musisi, who has been fought by so many forces, you can see the impact the lady has had there.
Yes, there is tiredness, corruption, lack of commitment in executing programmes, but that is because the people who are supposed to monitor do not monitor and I think the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi owes you an explanation in those fields.
Then, in the video, I saw the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi talking about scholastic materials, including mathematical sets, how he is going to distribute them to our students. Well, I made some calculations. I was informed that a mathematical set costs sh3,500 and I assumed that we may need to give them to about four million children.
The pupils in the primary schools are 1.5m now and 2.5m in secondary schools. Let us assume there are four million students who need these mathematical sets in secondary schools and upper primary. Giving mathematical sets to four million students would need sh14b.
The budget of the Ministry of Education is sh2.3 trillion. So, the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi was supervising the whole government, not just one sector, the ministry of education was getting sh2.3 trillion. I think the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi owes you an explanation as to why he was not able to do this when he was prime minister and wants to do it when he is now in his new position.
Anyway, just to refresh your mind. In 1996, we had 40,000 classrooms. We now have 149,591 classrooms. The number of primary schools was 7,351 and it is now 18,408. Secondary schools were 508 and they are now 2,950. The post-primary institutions were 125 and they are now 319. The new schools we have just built are 569.
Nevertheless, I am going to meet the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi to talk about the reactionary methods being used; seditious documents being circulated, false stories being told.
Regarding his statement, the points in there are easy to answer.
If there is anybody who could be questioned about the weaknesses, the Rt. Hon. Mbabazi is one of them. We have achieved a lot. We could have achieved more, there are weaknesses. I always tell you the people we hold accountable and when we get good cadres, the results are excellent. I thought I should clarify these issues as they come along. I thank you!
RELATED STORIES: