Commemorating the 33 years of NRM Government

By David Serumaga

On Saturday, January 26, 2019, Ugandans from all corners will stick together with the citizens of Tororo District to commemorate the33^rd NRA/NRM Victory Day anniversary at Muwafu Primary School Play Grounds, Nabuyoga Sub County.

The theme for this year's celebrations is "A moment of Glory that set a new Chapter for Unity, Peace and Prosperity in Uganda". On this favorable Day of our emancipation, we recall and evaluate how far we have come as a country.

This 33 Liberation Day celebration reminds us to straighten all things which went wrong from our previous political leaders. This includes the continuous political disorder, insecurity, tribalism, and broad-day light violence of human rights.

Ending up all such actions led to the creation of a new Uganda and liberated its people from the dictatorship and misrule of leaders who took over power before National Resistance Movement.  

The dictatorship and misrule of the former leaders resulted into an image of terrible and unfriendly politics hence leading Ugandans into experiencing poor governance. Since insecurity and power struggles was the order of the day, our economic system faced a lot of challenges leading our people to leave below the benchmarks of poverty and being dependants on the mercy of our friends.

The above mentioned crisis and other issues forced President Museveni and a number of young and energetic Ugandans in 1981to start a way that later liberated Ugandans from the mysterious governance of our previous leaders.  This struggle that was launched in 1981 was successfully completed in 1986 by the NRA/M liberators.

These courageous liberators henceforth began a serious task of clean all the political mess-ups of our country, protecting Ugandans, uniting them, developing and mapping the processes of modernizing our country.

All this has been achieved not by miracles but remarkably, on description of a well planned and collective NRM vision of "a combined peace and prosperous country." These successes are demonstrated in some sectors includes; security, education, democratic governance, health, economy, energy and water connectivity among others.

Today, we celebrate the 33 years of NRM government in pride and honor for achieving what has eluded most African armies; good discipline and professionalism in the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces. Good discipline continues to be the hallmark of our stability. Cracking out all rebel groups like Lord's Resistence Army of Joseph Kony, the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Auma Lakwena, the Allied Democratic Forces among other few groups or individuals who tried to destabilize our peace and security. This has made Uganda to continue enjoying extraordinary peace and stability, within her borders, under the NRM regime. 

Within the path of promoting the NRM ideology of Pan-Africanism, Uganda has continued to play a significant role of creating and maintaining a sustainable peace, unity and development within the region. This can be witnessed on our great contribution of our forces towards the African Union Mission in Somalia which have transformed Somalis security, economy and other developments. It has also played a critical role in bring peace in Central African Republic (CAR) and leading the peace agreements in South Sudan and Burundi.

Peace and stability has also strengthened our open-door policy which has made Uganda to be seen as a role model throughout the world of hosting more than 1 million refugees mostly from South Sudan. Apparently, Uganda is the largest refugee hosting country in Africa and fifth in the world. 

Despite of our political differences in the country, the 33 years of NRM have been a success on developing democratic governance in Uganda. Like the way article one states that power belongs to the people, the NRM government has all the time been organizing free and fair elections starting from the local council level, parliamentary up to national level. Additionally to this, President Museveni has been on frontline of creating a mutual relationship with other opposition party leaders for example through the Inter Party Organization for Dialogue

In a way of transforming our education sector, a lot of progress has been made over the years like the introduction of universal education at the primary and secondary level, construction of seed schools at the Sub County level, introduction of the university load scheme, construction of a vocation school at every Sub County, empowering teachers and students. All this has increased The literacy rate for Ugandans from 45 percent in 1991 to 72.5 percent in 2018. Currently, Uganda has 3,958 secondary schools, 19, 818 primary schools, 153 Technical and Tertiary Institutes and 47 universities.

In a way of rehabilitating our economy, NRM's performance is credible because according to the December 2018, Uganda Bureau of Statistics report, the country's economy enlarged by 6.8% in the first quarter of FY 2018/2019. Nevertheless, according to National Budget Framework Paper for FY 2019/20 report, it proved that our exports had risen from USD4.8 bn in FY 2016/17, to USD 5.3 bn in FY 2017/18. 

In the health sector, the NRM government has focused more on controlling preventable diseases through immunization, observing good hygiene, nutrition and providing curative services to those who fall sick. It has also recognized that a healthy population is an input in economic and social development. In these 33 years, there has been improvement in Health infrastructure, improved staffing in Health facilities, Improvement in the Management of Medicines, improvement of the functionality of HC IIIs and HC IVs, supply of medical ambulances and medical equipments to all hospitals and health centre IVs, provision of solar systems in all rural health units, improvement of HC IIs to provide safe deliveries, construction of regional blood back, controlling diseases like; HIV,AIDS Prevention and Control, Malaria control, Immunization, Non Communicable Diseases (Chronic Diseases), infant child and maternal health among others.

The NRM government has registered tremendous success in the water connectivity and providing safe water to its people. By September 2018, the total network length of water was 14,838.56 km. So far, the National Water & Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has fully covers 238 towns.  In 2014, water services to the less-advantaged communities were at 100 per annum but now we are at 1000 per annum.

We have witnessed and still witnessing the NRM's effort in transforming Uganda from peace and security, health sector, energy connectivity, education, gender and girl child empowerment, creation of jobs and skilling the youth, improved transport networks, industrialization, trade, among others.
 
President, Buganda Youth Wing

serumagadavid916@gmail.com