BUILDING THE FOUNDATION IN ORDER TO CREATE

MORE JOBS AND WEALTH FOR THE UGANDA FAMILIES

Greetings to the youth of Uganda.

St. Paul had an efficient system of communicating with the

early Christian communities in the form of the Epistles to the

respective groups. The word “epistles” comes from a Greek

word “epistole” and means a formal or written

communication. However, my understanding is that the word

epistle means a letter in the language of today.

I would, therefore, like to use the same method to

communicate my views to the youth regarding the problems

they face and opportunities that are available to them today

in Uganda.

Let us start with the problems first:

1. The most pressing problem the youth face, today, are

jobs. In 1969, the Universities of East Africa combined,

were graduating 476 numbers of students per year.

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In 1970, when Makerere University became

independent, they were graduating 854 numbers of

students. Even at that time, it was beginning to be

difficult for the university graduates, with general

degrees, to find jobs quickly in the public service. By

that time, the phase of “Africanizing the public service”

jobs was over. Today, the universities in Uganda alone,

are graduating 40,000 numbers of students per annum.

The numbers, therefore, are much more than in the

1970s. Yet, the public service jobs have not and could

not have expanded correspondingly. Except for the

teaching service, the armed forces, the police and

prisons services, the rest of the public services have

expanded only marginally. These sectors cannot,

therefore, take on many graduates. Yet, the medical

services, the engineering sectors, the teaching of

science subjects in schools and some of the other

science ─ oriented professional sectors, still have alot of

unmanned jobs even in the public service, not to

mention the private sector or jobs that are manned by

foreigners.

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With the population of 35 million people, bearing in mind

the World Health Organization (WHO) population: doctor

ratio of 500 population for one doctor, Uganda needs

70,000 doctors. We only, however, have 2,813

registered doctors (both in government and private

health centres) i.e. 1,055 in government, 882 in private

and the rest are self- employed in the various clinics.

The global ratio of engineer to population as

recommended by the United Nations Education,

Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is 1

engineer for at most 2,000 people in a country.

However, in some countries like Israel it is 1:74; USA

1:118; Kenya 1:6,328; Uganda 1:90,000. In Uganda we

only have about 5,300-6,000 registered engineers. This

is inspite of the increased tempo of training both doctors

and engineers, by building new universities ─

government and private.

By 1986, we were graduating only 79 doctors per year at

Makerere University. We are now graduating 343

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doctors plus 10 dental surgeons per annum in both

government and private universities in Uganda.

We were graduating 38 engineers by 1986. We are now

graduating 934 engineers every year, with Kyambogo

University alone producing 439. Yet, we still have the

gap as pointed out above in manning the job

opportunities available.

In the social sciences sector, on the other hand, there is

big over-subscription of the new graduates who find

difficulty in getting jobs in both the government and

private sectors. When it comes to the question of jobs,

therefore, this is the paradox that we need to deal with:

on the one hand, a large number of unmanned science

oriented professional jobs and, on the other hand, a

large number of unemployed graduates mainly with

degrees of social sciences.

The answers to this paradox have been the following:

(i) putting pressure on the Ministry of Education to give

career guidance to all of our children in secondary

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schools on the jobs available in the economy of Uganda

and the world at large;

(ii) expanding science education by insisting that 70% of

government sponsorship should go to science courses;

(iii) helping the youth, through soft loans, to start any

livelihood enterprises that may be different from the

courses they studied at the university in the four sectors

of the economy; these sectors are: agriculture, industry,

services and ICT.

(iv) innovation fund for the science graduates who may have

any projects they want to implement;

(v) recruitment into the army, prisons and police where

general education is useful in enhancing the trainability

and the general understanding of the officers and

militants;

(vi) encouraging the graduates, most of whom speak good

English, to join the Business Processes Outsourcing

(BPO) in the form of ICT call centres and outsourced

services such as auditing, accounting, etc. This is where

customers, in distant places like USA and Canada,

outsource these services from our youth based here in

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Uganda but using the internet services that have been

enhanced with the new ICT backbone on land and the

undersea cable from Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam;

(vii) re-tooling of our graduates that may have done social

science courses but would now be willing to do technical

courses that are more needed in the job market; and

(viii) the proliferating of science and computer labs in all

primary and secondary schools, in order to give them a

more sound science knowledge base at an early age.

I recently, for instance, advised one youth to do a

secretarial service diploma in addition to the degree that

would make her much more employable. This can be

extended to other fields of technical knowledge.

In the NRM Manifesto, I intend to propose that this re-

tooling of graduates be done at government cost. This is

some support, a type of compensation, for the families

that would have sponsored their children privately

through university education, only to end up with

unemployed graduates.

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2. Above, we have talked at length about university

graduates. We have laid out the paradox that is found in

many developing countries, that are beginning to move

forward, of a large number of unemployed social science

graduates, on the one hand, as well as a large number of

unmanned science oriented jobs in both the public and

the private sectors, on the other hand.

Yet, it is not only the graduate jobs that are unmanned.

Even technical jobs that require diplomas and

certificates may be unmanned or manned by foreigners

or are manned by unqualified people. When it comes,

for instance, to machine operators in factories or road

equipment, you may find either foreigners or untrained

Ugandans manning those units.

When launching the Lwampanga-Namasale ferry, I got

very uncomfortable when I discovered that the operators

of the ferry had been trained on the job by the suppliers

of the ferry from Denmark. I, immediately, ordered for

the starting of marine technical courses at Namasagali

University College, which is a branch of Busitema

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University. We are, therefore, planning to build a

technical school in every district first and, eventually, in

each constituency. Some of the technical schools will

cover the broad spectrum of skills e.g. machine

operators, building, carpentry, motor-mechanics, metal

work, ceramics, etc. Others will be more specialized

such as the Kigumba Petroleum Institute which is

specializing in petroleum and gas or Namasagali

University which should specialize in Marine courses

(boat drivers, ferry technicians, water navigators etc).

This is not to forget the science teacher colleges, the

medical auxiliaries’ colleges, etc. We had intended to

build a vocational school in each sub-county. It,

however, turned out to be very expensive. Therefore,

the present target of a technical school per constituency

is more realizable. We already have 57 Technical

Institutes for S.4 leavers of the different categories, 4

Tourism Institutes, 5 Technical Colleges and 42

Technical Institutes and Community Polytechnics for P7

leavers (Vocational schools).

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3. The reader of this letter would have noticed that the

heading of the document: “Building the Foundation in

order to create more Jobs and Wealth for the Ugandan

families”. This is because you cannot easily do what I

have laid down above, if you have not created the

necessary foundation. The necessary foundation

includes the following:

adequate and affordable electricity;

good roads that lower the transport costs;

the railway and water transport that further lower –

transport costs more than the roads;

universal primary and secondary education that improve

the literacy and numeracy of the population;

the market integration in the East Africa and the African

region that is providing markets for the products of our

agriculture, industry, services and ICT as well as other

skills;

universal immunization and other health programs that

keep the population healthy and saves the families from

spending too much money and time caring for the sick

members of the family as well as being able to work

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without excessive absentism on account of poor health

for the individuals concerned;

security and peace in the whole country so that

producers of wealth and services are not impeded in

their pursuits; and

a corruption-free public service that would facilitate

rather than impede the efforts of Ugandans and

foreigners that would be pursuing any of the gainful

efforts I have outlined above.

If we do not have the above as a foundation, you cannot

sustainably execute this vision of job and wealth

creation. Hence, the THREE PILLARS OF PROSPERITY

FOR ALL. The three pillars are: the foundation, wealth

creation and job creation. All these nevertheless, need

funding.

In order to see the linkage among the three pillars, let us

take the example of electricity and transport

bottlenecks. After many years and efforts of trying to

get a coffee processor and a high quality textile factory,

we, finally, succeeded in getting two companies. One

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called Vinci, will roast, grind, package and brand our

coffee so that Uganda can supply coffee consumers in

the world directly without going through other middle

men.

Similarly, we also got a textile manufacturer ─ Fine

Spinner ─ who will use Ugandan cotton to produce high

quality products. Both of them, however, pointed out

that electricity that costs more than 5 US cents per unit

will render the two enterprises unprofitable. Yet, once

Vinci is implemented, it will create 287 jobs and earn

120 million dollars, on the average, in foreign exchange,

per annum. Fine Spinners has already created 800 jobs

in Kampala alone; 6,000 small holder farms for cotton in

Kasese and, by 2017, it will be earning 23 million dollars

foreign exchange per annum.

Therefore, if we did not solve the problem of electricity,

not only availability but affordability, we would lose that

amount of money and that number of jobs. On the issue

of roads and transport in general, the best examples are

the new roads we have just constructed.

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Recently, I addressed a rally in the Isingiro area. One of

the speakers told me that the price of banana bunches

has gone up. When I inquired what the cause was, I was

told that, on account of the brand new road in the area,

many transporters were bringing their vehicles to that

area because the road was no longer costly to operate

on and, therefore, the demand for bananas had gone up

and, hence, the price of bananas has gone up.

When you look at the railway from Mombasa, it now

takes 21 days to bring a container from Mombasa to

Kampala and it costs US dollars 2,100. When the new

standard gauge railway is finished, it will take 24 hours

(one day) for the same container to move from Mombasa

to Kampala and will cost US dollars 1,650. In terms of

comparative cost per unit, the present railway cost is

US$ 2,100 and the future one will be US dollars 1,650,

which means we shall be saving US dollars 450 per

container. The same container transported by road

today costs 3200 dollars and takes 7-11 days.

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Some time ago, we worked on the Sembabule piped

water supply and I was satisfied that the people of

Sembabule town would be having piped water in their

homes, restaurants, hotels. However, recently, when I

went there, I was told the pump was not being used. In

otherwords, the people of Sembabule were without clean

piped water and yet the water system was already

operational. What was the cause? Lack of grid electricity

and depending on diesel for pumping which was

expensive and not affordable.

Therefore, creating a foundation that is adequate and

affordable is unavoidable in the battle for job creation

and wealth creation. Some of the manufacturers are

forced to generate their own electricity so as to avoid

the expensive electricity supplied by the grid. The sugar

mills use this method by generating electricity from the

bagasse of their sugar-canes.

Fortunately, the new dams we are building at Karuma

and Isimba will produce a unit of electricity at either US

5 cents per unit or less. We are also studying ways of

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how we can re-finance Bujagali by compensating the

developers who used expensive money in building that

dam so that their price comes down in order to make it

affordable to the consumers, especially, the

manufacturers. High costs of doing business in an

economy drive away investors. Low costs of doing

business in an economy attract investors.

Therefore, if you hear somebody talking about wealth or

job creating but without talking about the foundation,

you should, then, know that he/she is not serious or

he/she is not honest.

4. Most of what we have talked about above requires

government expenditure. However, the government

does not spend money that it does not have. Therefore,

tax collection becomes very critical. Nevertheless, you

cannot collect taxes if you don’t have enterprise

operators that you are taxing.

On account of the collapse of the economy between

1970 and1986, the tax base of Uganda was very narrow.

That is why in 1986 we collected only 5 billion shillings in 14

a year. Today, we are collecting 12,000 billion shillings

per year. Why are we collecting more money now than

in 1986? It is because we have got more businesses to

tax and more consumers to tax. Therefore, expanding

the tax base is also a precursor to job and wealth

creation. That, however, is not all; not only do we need

to widen the tax base as a precursor to solve the above

problems, it is also crucial that we prioritize the way we

spend this money.

If we want to be everywhere at the same time, we shall

end up being nowhere. If we want to hit in all directions

with our fist, we shall end up knocking down nothing.

The Banyankore say that: “Owabinga ibiri imutsiga”. This

means that when you are hunting, you should not target

more than one animal at one time. Target one animal,

successfully shoot it and, then, go to another animal.

The NRM, by prioritizing expenditure on the roads,

electricity, education for all, immunization, security and

ICT backbone, we have laid a foundation of wealth and

job creation. How? Making it easy for entrepreneurs to

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start their businesses in Uganda, do so in a secure

atmosphere and where they can make profits, are very

critical preconditions for dealing with the issue of wealth

and jobs.

5. There is also another foundation issue. This is the

strategic question of somebody buying what you

produce ─ whether a good or a service. If you produce a

good or a service and nobody buys it or a few people

buy it, your business will go bankrupt. Therefore, apart

from the internal market of Uganda, we need the

regional market as well as access to the international

markets. Accordingly, right from 1986, we started

working with our partners in East Africa to revive the

East African common market.

I salute Mzee Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Mzee Arap Moi who

helped me revive this market in the community. I also salute

President Paul Kagame and President Nkurunziza, who, later,

joined the community. This has now created a market for the

East African producers of goods and services, the Ugandans

included.

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We have not only created market for our goods and services

in East Africa but, also, we have negotiated with the

Americans, the European Union, the Chinese, the Indians and

many others on the access to their markets.

Therefore, the Ugandan innovators and producers along with

all other East Africans cannot say they don’t have the market

to sell their products to.

These are some of the few issues that are linked with the

efforts for wealth and job creation.

I thank you very much. We shall discuss more.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni P R E S I D E N T

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