Forget false promises

THE PROMISES made by presidential aspirants are becoming increasingly ridiculous. Last week Francis Bwengye and Aggrey Awori promised new railway lines to western Uganda. Awori is also promising free secondary education. Besigye has promised to abolish graduated tax which would gravely undermine local government. Now he is promising to fund all the monarchies and cultural institutions from the public purse. How is the taxpayer going to afford to pay for both the monarchies and the abolished graduated tax? The truth is that these things will never happen because Uganda cannot afford either of them. Presidential aspirants so far have been making wild promises of instant heaven on earth in Uganda. Let us get our feet back on the ground. Let presidential aspirants come up with concrete realistic proposals for what they intend to do if elected. If they are promising something as expensive as free secondary school education for all, candidates should explain where they are going to find the money. If a candidate says the money can come from the defence budget, let him explain exactly how much money will be left in the defence budget. Let presidential aspirants be analytical and objective when they are making commitments to the electorate. Otherwise they will lose all credibility with the voters. Drop Sendaula censure A GROUP of Members of Parliament is allegedly preparing a censure motion against the Minister of Finance Gerald Sendaula over the car loans scheme. They claim that they were defrauded by the Ministry of Finance and the Central Purchasing Scheme. This is truly ridiculous. The MPs selected the vehicles themselves knowing the prices. They agreed to the repayment terms. The MPs should just drop the censure motion and complete repayment of their loans. Ends.