Museveni summons NRM MPs over wealth creation

President Yoweri Museveni has summoned the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus for a meeting over Operation Wealth Creation.

The caucus meeting, which is expected to start later on Monday evening, will be convened at State House, Entebbe.

The meeting comes against the backdrop of Museveni's recent regional tours on wealth creation, where he has advised citizens to ditch traditional agriculture and adopt modern commercial farming.

According to MPs, the meeting between NRM lawmakers and Museveni, who is also the party chairperson, will start at 3:00 pm.

In his message for wealth creation, Museveni said, all leaders must work hard to make sure that 68% of the population, which is still trapped in traditional agriculture, can improve household income through modern agriculture.

Sources say, other issues, including the proposed electoral reforms and a wide number of constitutional reforms, including Article 26 of the Constitution, which concerns land rights, will be discussed.

Last year, the government proposed the amendment of Article 26, citing unnecessary delays in the implementation of government infrastructural projects emanating from compensation disputes.

However, the proposal faced resistance, even though the government tabled the constitutional land amendment, saying it seeks to strengthen Article 26 and pave way for faster land acquisition for public infrastructure.

The land acquisition amendment, government officials argue, seeks to give government leeway to use the land gazetted for public infrastructure development after depositing compensation money agreed by the chief government valuer to court pending determination by a court of any dispute relating to compensation.

Currently, once the owner of the land rejects the government compensation or challenges it in court, work on the government projects on such land are paralysed pending a court ruling.

The other way out is for government to redesign the infrastructure project so that it doesn't affect the land that the owner has refused to cede to the government over compensation disputes.