Leader of the Opposition, Hon Mathias Mpuuga has responded to the State of the Nation Address delivered by President Yoweri Museveni on June 4. While delivering his response, Mpuuga said that government is now using Covid 19 as an excuse for their recent failures.
“COVID19 has become a cover-up for almost every gov’t failure. Of late the President and his government attribute to the pandemic the contraction of the economy, rising poverty levels, escalating public debt and poor service delivery among others,” said Mpuuga.
He backed up his statement basing on the budget allocation.
“This is exhibited in the budget allocations towards the tourism and hospitality sector. Irrespective of its present capacity of generating US$ 1.6 billion per year, the gov’t only invests shs100 billion.
“This has been the case for years. The sectors of tourism, hotels, banking, music, sports and professional services, irrespective of their potential have for a long time been neglected by government. The President has even referred to them as luxurious,” said Mpuuga
Mpuuga said the President is silent about the increased youth unemployment in the country yet it is a security threat that requires urgent and deliberate attention.
“The educated youth are increasingly getting frustrated due to lack of employment opportunities. Initiatives like Youth Livelihood Programme, Youth Enterprise Scheme & Skilling Uganda and Youth Venture Capital Fund have failed to bear satisfactory fruits. They have failed to stimulate labour demand and uptake. Cases of sexual harassment, trafficking, non-payment and underpayment are reported but not adequately addressed,” Mpuuga said.
He also said that government seems to have embraced externalization of labour as an escape route of dealing with the youth whose aspirations it failed to fulfil.
“Millions of people have become secondary citizens in their own motherland. Corruption is responsible for trimming their aspirations to survival instead of prosperity,” he said.