Museveni asks African Bishops to help address low productivity
Jul 21, 2019
The President, who asked to address the bishops before the mass kicked off, noted that Christians and people from other religious sects are engaged in low productivity.
KAMPALA-As the African Bishops Assembly starts, President Yoweri Museveni has asked them to help address the issues of low productivity and consumption which is hampering development in Africa.
The President, who asked to address the Bishops before the mass kicked off, noted that Christians and people from other religious sects are engaged in low productivity.
"The problem you find in families is that we are stuck on two points. One, they still leave in subsistence farming. They only work for the stomach. They don't know how to work both for the stomach and money. And when they try both, they do so without evaluating the profitability of what they are doing," he said.
"Here in Uganda, you find that a person produces 5.3 tonnes per hectare of land yet a nearby research institute produces 53 tonnes on the same size of land. People are producing 10 times smaller than what comes from that land," he added.
The African catholic prelates are in Uganda to celebrate 50 years of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM). SECAM, an association of African catholic bishops, was launched in Uganda by St. Pope Paul VI during his visit to Africa on July 31, 1969, at Rubaga Cathedral.
The celebrations which started with a mass at the association's birthplace will continue at Speke Resort and Conference Centre Munyonyo. Another mass will also be held at the Catholic martyrs' shrine in Namugongo.
Museveni contended that with low productivity comes low consumption. Giving an example of milk, he said despite the WHO recommendation of 210 litres per person per year, Ugandans are consuming only 60 litres per person per year.
He warned that when the situation is left as it is, the Church is likely to get little as offertory from Christians.