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567President Museveni (C) arriving at the Kololo Independence Grounds. On his left is the First Lady, Janet Museveni
President Yoweri Museveni has put corrupt officials on notice over the Parish Development Model, a parish microfinance scheme operated by the government to finance local enterprises.
In a special address to Parliament on PDM, a project he said is in sync with his ruling National Resistance Movement party’s key tenets on social-economic transformation, Museveni said he will show no mercy to the corrupt.
“The wananchi (locals) told me of parasites that were swarming around the Parish Development Model and Emyooga money; if anyone touches on the Emyooga money, I will deal with them decisively; these thieves are not very clever…and if you steal, we shall come and find out,” he said.
The President enumerated several discoveries he made on the PDM during a tour that took him to the Acholi sub-region and that by the end of his field visits across the country, he will have obtained the requisite information needed to set the lending arrangement on the sail.
He repeated his warning to officials he said are lurking around to dubiously misappropriate the Shs100 million per parish funds, saying he will handle them viciously.
“Do not worry; anybody who messes up, we shall mess them up as well,” he told MPs who gathered at the Kololo Independence grounds, where Parliament sat on Thursday 16 March 2022 to receive the special address.
Museveni disclosed that he had inked a US$150 million dairy products deal with his Algerian counterpart H. E. Abdelmajid Tebboune, who he visited in a diplomatic tour to the North African country.
The visit was hot on the heels of a neighbouring country’s ban on Ugandan dairy products which was later quietly rescinded after back-end diplomatic negotiations.
But Museveni said the deal with Algeria will cushion Uganda from the increasingly erratic nature of her trade relations with some neighbouring countries.
Museveni said Nigeria is on his watch-list for a charm offensive to get the West African country to welcome Ugandan products.
He said farmers should stick to the products emphasized by government officials under the PDM, because he was sure they would easily access ‘national, regional and international markers’.
Museveni said at least 90 per cent of parishes in the country have warmed up to the PDM, and that the monies sent to the parishes are not to be returned to the centre at the end of the financial year if it is unspent as is the practice, but that it will be incrementally supported with an extra Shs100 million every year to attract more users.
Homosexuality
President Museveni waded into the homosexuality debate, calling out the west for forcing their cultural values down the people of Africa.
Calling members of the LGBTQI community ‘deviants’, Museveni said the practices will not be tolerated.
“…homosexuality is a deviation from the normal; is it by nature or nurture? Western countries should stop wasting the time of humanity by trying to impose their values on other people,” he said.
He added, ‘sex in Uganda is confidential; even the heterosexuals do it confidentially’.
Parliament is currently processing a Bill on homosexuality sponsored by Hon. Asuman Basalirwa (JEEMA, Bugiri Municipality) which has since rattled a section of the international community.