Serwadda asks gov't to increase agriculture budget

Photo :Wilfred Sanya

The Born Again Faith Presiding Apostle Dr. Joseph Serwadda has asked government and parliament to ensure in the next national budget of 2018/2019 agriculture is allocated 10%.

While addressing the media on the 16th end of year Passover Festival scheduled to take place on December 31, Serwadda argued that since over 80% of Ugandans depend on agriculture, elimination of poverty in Uganda necessitates that government puts more resources in the sector.

"Government has continued to give agriculture only 3% of the national budget. Time has come for government to change its priorities and focus on sectors which will turn around the social-economic welfare of Ugandans. Even in the international market, Uganda's comparative advantage is in agriculture. Our exports will increase if we invest more in agriculture," Serwadda explained.

With 43% of the entire East Africa's arable land on which crops can successfully grow belonging to Uganda, Serwadda said Uganda has potential to become a global food basket.

"If government allocates enough resources to agriculture and Ugandans use modern farming technology like irrigation, mechanization and use of fertilizers under the guidance of extension workers, majority Ugandans will move away from subsistence farming and do commercial farming which will make them rich," he elaborated.

 During the 2012 NRM caucus at Kyankwanzi which involved presentations from many academicians and experts on the economy, the ruling party resolved to increasingly allocate more resources to agriculture beginning with an allocation of 7% but this has never been implemented.

During the last general elections campaigns of 2016, President Yoweri Museveni pledged that if he is re-elected as president of Uganda he would increase funding to NAADS from sh200b to sh1000b (1trillion). But nearly two years down the road of his current term of office, NAADS' is still in the range of sh200b.

During a consultative budget conference organized by the Presidential Advisory Committee on the budget, the minister for agriculture complained that whereas the allocation to his sector is still small, even what it was allocated in the 2016/2017 budget was cut by sh108b. 

"As a result, we were not able to provide the hoes, tractors and other services we had planned in the budget to provide to Ugandans. You cannot deny money to a sector where the country has comparative advantage to compete in the international trade," Ssempijja argued.

In the 2018/2019 budget framework which parliament will start debating next month, the allocation to agriculture will slightly increase from sh825.5b to sh831.7b, which will be 3.8% of the total budget of sh29trillion.

The parliament budget committee chairman Amos Lugolobi says without giving the productive sectors like agriculture significant portions of the national budget, poverty, unemployment and other economic problems would continue.

"Whereas these productive sectors of agriculture, tourism, and industry are the key production sectors, they are the least funded in the national budget. We cannot get significant progress as a country without prioritizing those sectors in our budgeting," he explained. 

Dr. Joseph Serwadda also urged the NRM government to walk the talk on its slogan Hakuna Muchezo for the current term of office.

"At the beginning of the current term of office in 2016, President Museveni told us this was going to be kisanja Hakuna Muchezo. But apart from UPDF, we continue to see muchezo/poor performance in all other state institutions. We hope government will make a difference in this regard in the next year of 2018," Serwadda proposed.

The presiding Apostle argued that if the Hakuna Muchezo promise had been implemented, corruption would not be as high as it is in Uganda.

"In the course of this year, the Inspector General of Government Justice Irene Mulyagonja said the research they had conducted indicated a huge rise of graft in the local governments. The ongoing probe by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire has unearthed graft enough to fill Luzira with culprits," he stated.

In the light of the high rate of immorality in the country characterized with corruption, greed, and many other evils, Serwadda said they have prepared special night of prayer and intercession for divine intervention in the affairs of Uganda which will take place on December 30, 2017 on Saturday ahead of the end of year Passover Festival.

As has been the case for many other Passover Festivals in Namboole, Serwadda said there would be a patriotic exercise of imploring believers to donate blood.

"Donating blood is a special gift one can give to his fellow citizens whose lives would be saved with the donated blood. We hope that we will be able to collect 30,000 units of blood from the believers who come to Namboole," he said.

Serwadda, who is the pioneer of end of year prayers in Uganda which have now been embraced by all Christian denominations, appealed to believers who will go for the Passover Festival at Namboole to come with gifts which they would donate to the prisoners.

He commended the various companies that are sponsoring this year's festival which among others include Coca Cola, MTN, Movit, Post Bank, Psalms Food, Star Times, Brotherhood agencies, and Great Lakes Brand.

Declaring 2018 a year of difference, Serwadda said, "The theme of the convocation is Exodus 11:7. We have conviction that God has promised to make a clear distinction between those who obey him and those who don't obey him. God will make a tangible, visible difference between his people and the world. 2018 will usher in a series of noticeable differences from previous years