Museveni defends stand to delay salary raise

By Alfred Wandera

President Yoweri Museveni has defended his stand to invest in infrastructure development first and consider increasing salaries for civil servants later.

Speaking while presiding over the celebrations to mark the international Labour Day in Kisoro district on Friday, Museveni ranked his priorities in the order of importance as God, peace, infrastructure and education and health.  

“Uganda is a very beautiful country. I have travelled to many countries but I have not seen a country as beautiful as Uganda. When we came into power in 1986, Uganda was like food without salt. It was a country without development but now you can see the salt we have added to Uganda. You can now see the 300-mile-road from Kampala to Kisoro,” said Museveni.

He added: “When you increase salaries of public servants, you will have highly paid civil servants but no roads to Kisoro or Kanungu. In order to develop infrastructure, you need to withhold funding to other areas. Once you build a good road like the one from Kampala to Kisoro, you will not build another one in 15 years. But when you begin with increasing salaries, which is paid monthly, is that the best strategy?” said Museveni.

Museveni hailed Uganda as one of the few countries in Africa that is linked south to north and east to west with an all-weather road network.

“We are moving in the right direction. We are now working on the modern railway. The Chinese are giving us a big loan to fund the construction of the railway. We need to meet the trade union leaders so that we discuss and resolve the issue of civil servants salaries. We don’t need to rotate on this issue’” added Museveni.

The President warned against comparing Uganda and Singapore in development saying the latter it is a small island in the ocean.

 “The other day I was in northern Uganda. I travelled very fast from Nwoya to Kampala at night because of the good road we have built. We are now moving to construct roads in Kapchorwa, Kween and Bukwo districts. We are also going to work on the road from Mbale, Bumbo to Magale. It’s not only roads that we have worked on, but even electricity. Ntungamo, Rukungiri and Kabale districts had no electricity but now they are lit,” he noted.

He explained that some people wanted to exploit iron ore in Butogota but he rejected the proposal because there is no railway line connecting to the area which would make the country earn a paltry $37 per tonne instead of $600 because it would be sold in an unprocessed form.


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