President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has urged the people of the Lango subregion to use the prevailing peace in the region to create wealth and chase poverty out of their homes.
According to the President, who is in the region to assess the performance of the Parish Development Model (PDM), the prevailing peace is a fundamental driver of wealth creation in Uganda through enabling investment, business growth, and job creation.
“When you are planning public affairs, first of all, think about peace. How can we bring and maintain peace? And anybody who’s trying to disturb peace, don’t allow them because peace is an infrastructure for everything. You can get a very rich country like Congo, always very rich with a lot of minerals and so on, but you can see what is happening there; it cannot develop,” H.E. Museveni said.
The President made the remarks on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, while addressing leaders from the Lango sub-region at Ikwera Boma play ground in Aduku town council, Kwania North, Kwania district.
The Lango sub-region, which includes districts such as Lira, Apac, Oyam, Kole, Dokolo, Amolatar, Alebtong, Otuke, and Kwania, is now on a path of development, with improvements in various sectors after successful recovery from the devastating effects of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and other conflicts that affected the region.
President Museveni reassured the leaders of further improving the infrastructure in the region, such as roads connecting the different parts of the region to foster wealth creation. He mentioned the Lira-Kamdini Road, spanning 66.5 kilometers, which is currently undergoing extensive rehabilitation, and the construction of the road connecting Ochero, Amolatar to Namasale, and Dokolo.
“But I want you to be systematic and not to do things at once. We can actually make mistakes because we have diverted more than Shs. 1 trillion to PDM. In five years, you’re talking of seven trillion shillings, which would work on all the roads in Uganda. All those roads you’re talking about, we would finish them in five years. But Apio, who bought sheep to create wealth, would not have bought them,” the President noted, while cautioning the people not to rush the government into doing everything at once.
“You should stop confusing the driver. I’m the driver of the bus. I know where to stop and where to slow down. If I’m driving and I slow down and you shout at me for slowing down, you’re going to make me collide. We may have slowed down on the roads, but it’s because we are dealing with PDM. So please be guided by flexibility. This is how you succeed,” he added.
In the same vein, President Museveni called upon the people of Lango to differentiate between development, which is for all Ugandans, and wealth creation, for which, without it, poverty remains in their homes.
He said even if the government provided roads, water, electricity, health centers, and schools, and people don’t change their mindset to join commercial production, they will remain poor.
Giving examples of the farmers he has visited in the Lango subregion, the President was happy to learn that people in the countryside are embracing the PDM initiative to get out of poverty.
“Yesterday I visited a young boy called Jowel Okello in Amolatar. He’s an engineer, but he has gone into farming, and he has got a good farm there with goats and sheep, and he wants to add. So, Jowel Okello, instead of being a job seeker, he has created money, but he has also created jobs—38 of them,” H.E. Museveni said, noting that even those that have not benefited are optimistic and looking forward to being supported.
“When I was coming here, I stopped at a swamp, about four kilometres from here, and some villagers there came to join me; they told me that poverty is very serious here. Then I said to them, Have you heard about PDM? They said yes, but the ones that have benefited are on the other side. For us, we shall get the next time. I was very happy with that,” he added, while expressing confidence in the capacity of the PDM to create more jobs for Ugandans than in the other different sectors of the government, such as teaching, police, army, and healthcare.
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