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The President, on Tuesday, wondered how residents in the area have remained “poor and comfortable” despite the numerous development interventions by the government.
“How can you be so poor and not care?” he remarked.
“It is not good for us to come here and celebrate stop there; that is not enough. We need to ask ourselves if what we are doing is helpful.”
President Museveni was speaking at a Thanksgiving event for Hon John Mulimba, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and MP for Samia-Bugwe constituency.
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Before the main event, the President interacted with local leaders at the minister’s home in Busia where he was informed of the persisting household poverty.
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Government programs not working
He was informed for instance that only 12% of the residents had benefitted from initiatives such as Emyooga, NAADS and the Parish Development Model (PDM).
Museveni noted that while the Eastern subregion has benefitted from major infrastructural projects such as tarmac roads, health facilities and schools, household incomes remain critically low.
“I would like to know where the money we have been sending you went,” he added.
Local leaders told the presidents that some farming inputs they got from the government were not effective. Coffee seedlings, for instance, they said, were brought in the dry spell and most of them dried.
On this, the President tipped the locals to use rudimentary irrigation as he had done at his model farms, where he uses plastic bottles to irrigate his coffee.
Minister Mulimba thanked the President at the Thanksgiving event for entrusting him with the cabinet position.
He also pledged to “serve with dignity and best of my ability to uphold the best ideals of our nation Uganda.”