Museveni emphasises the need to focus on job creation in Labour Day speech

Museveni who was giving an address during the International Labour Day celebrations held in Namutumba district on Monday, 1 May 2023 said by implementing the Parish Development Model (PDM) properly – Government of Uganda’s most recent poverty alleviation scheme – about 70 million jobs would be created.

“If 7 million families have an acre each, and they use their land productively using the PDM funds, each family would create about 10 jobs which will amount to 70 million jobs,” he said.

Museveni added: “If we fully commercialise agriculture, we will create more jobs than the population of Uganda. Imagine if each family productively used the one acre of land using the PDM funds, we will have a lot of jobs more than the people of Uganda. Because on one farm, there are a lot of jobs that can be created.”

The President pointed out that rampant corruption by civil servants has been a stumbling block to investor confidence in Uganda which has led to less creation of jobs. He vowed to fight people who are involved in the illegal practice.

“We have a problem of corruption lately. There are people who are always disturbing our investors telling them that they would help them get this and this if they paid a particular amount of money to them. I have received reports about these people and I will take action,” he said.

“I am going to set up another unit in my office where the investors can ring directly if anybody asks them for a bribe or delays decision-making,” he added.

The President also emphasised the need to reduce the cost of doing business and being competitive to the rest of the world in business which, according to him, would help create more jobs for Ugandans.

“Bribery and delayed decision-making raise the cost of doing business in Uganda, as Minister Betty Amongi said. I am using this Labour Day to tell everybody that we are going to have a big fight with these people,” he said.

“We must be competitive with the rest of the world, this means in four areas majorly; the cost of electricity especially in manufacturing, repairing the railway and building a new one, the costs of money for business and agriculture given by UDB and finally the cost of labour.”

According to the Minister for Gender, Labour and Social development, Betty Amongi, unemployment rate in Uganda is projected to further slide down to 3% in 2023 having been at its highest in 2021 at 9% and 5% in 2022.

“The economy is continuing to create more jobs. We remain one of the economies that have rebounded strongly Post COVID amidst the global challenges. Unemployment rates have since gone down from 9% in 2021 to 5% in 2022 and is projected to further slide to 3% in 2023,” she said.

However, the minister revealed that 85% of the people employed in various sectors work in the informal sector which, according to her, means that Uganda’s formal sector is still very small.