Whoever Ate Government Money Must Pay—M7

President Yoweri Museveni has expressed concern at the high level of corruption in the Works ministry especially the road sector and said road contractors do shoddy work with the knowledge of the government officials. He said this has seen most of the roads being worn out before their expected life span.

must pay

The President who was on a one day working visit in Kasese to promote the wealth creation campaign made the remarks yesterday at a public rally at Kyarumba sub-county headquarters in Bukonjo East county.

The President said he learnt that there has been alarming corruption in the road sector where the government has been injecting a lot of money to improve the road network in the country. He noted that as a result of corruption, the country did not get value for her money as contractors continuously colluded with government officials to do shoddy work.

“I have been told that the Fort Portal – Kasese road is in that poor state because it was poorly done due to corruption and we have to reconstruct it after such a short time. This is unacceptable,” he said.

The President said he appointed a strict woman Allen Kagina, to head Uganda National Road Authority and she asked him to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry which he did to bring the culprits to book.

“What is important for people to know is that whoever ate government money will have to pay it back on top of being punished in accordance with the Law,” he said.

The President said that government has allocated 6.6 million shillings to the construction of a new and permanent bridge on River Nyamwamba which was washed away by the recent floods in the area.

He said the National Resistance Movement government has registered success in several sectors because of cohesive and strategic planning that prioritizes the most important sectors of the economy such as peace, roads, energy and human resource development.

“Many people have advocated for salary increase at the expense of infrastructure development but we had to be firm and resist the pressures because infrastructure developments have long term benefits to the economy,” he said.

On security the President assured Ugandans that their security is guaranteed by the strength of the UPDF supported by the citizens.

“I want to thank Ugandans for supporting the UPDF because you are the source of our army’s strength and I can assure you national peace is guaranteed” he noted.

On education; the President said that due to different interventions and programs the national literacy rate is now at 78% but said that government had embarked on a program of skilling Ugandans so as to create jobs.

On health; the President said that government continues to immunize all children against 13 diseases including survival cancer and hepatitis B but warned the population against promiscuity that has seen the rise in new HIV/Aids infections.

He said while government had done its part and will continue to improve on service delivery, Ugandans needed to exploit the developments to transform faster.

“As citizens your duty is to safeguard your lives, work to get out of poverty, promote peace and safeguard that peace by voting wisely and voting NRM that will guarantee that peace,” he said.

He noted that to overcome poverty Ugandans especially in rural areas needed to engage in modern agro production. He said the reason they sent UPDF officers in all constituencies of Uganda was to supervise the wealth creation program.

 

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