KAMPALA – President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has said Africa ought to establish a continental media outlet with a view of promoting its interests.
The president made the statement while delivering a lecture on opportunities to a visiting delegation of Senior Military Officers from the National Defence College of Kenya led by the Deputy Commandant of the institute, Maj Gen Charles Kahariri.
The delegation that arrived in Uganda on December 2 on a study tour; comprises officers from Namibia, Nigeria, Botswana, Tanzania, and Kenya. Museveni noted that until the continent got a channel like the Doha-based Al Jazeera, whose primary focus is the Middle East and the Arab World, the African message to the world would never get out.
Museveni also stressed that the socio-economic transformation of African societies can only be achieved by encouraging the population to join the money economy through modern commercial and calculated agriculture.
“In 1969 only four per cent of the population in Uganda was in a money economy until 2013 when the number increased to 32%. Today, 61% of the people in Uganda have joined the money economy. So commercial agriculture with calculation,” said Museveni.
The President added that another channel of transforming society was through education, singling out how the Uganda the government had adopted the universal primary and secondary school education program to enable all school-going children, attain knowledge.
He said once the population woke up and increased production, there would be a need for markets emphasising the need for the promotion of the principles of NRM that include Patriotism and Pan-Africanism needed for the expansion of the national, regional, and international markets for the increased farm production.
Museveni who took his guests through the European history that saw the society transform from peasantry to middle and skilled classes, added that in Uganda, the government worked on the recovery program and is now in the process of diversifying and expanding the economy.
He noted that products that were initially considered for consumption only like maize, Cassava as well as milk, and beef have now been diversified for commercial purposes. He added that Uganda is today very active in the sector of the pathogenic economy involving pharmaceuticals, making of vaccines, and sanitizers.
“When Corona (Covid-19) came, Uganda was the first country in East Africa to start making sanitizers; this is another category of industry. This is the economy we are using to transform society,” he said. He said the government was also bringing on board new industries like the designing and manufacture of electric vehicles buses and cars like the Kiira vehicles named after the River Nile.
“We are now moving towards the knowledge and skills industry,” he observed.
Commenting on some of the concerns raised by the military officers like the value addition, Museveni cited coffee whose process has been a huge struggle. He noted that the value of coffee in the whole world is $460b and the coffee producers in the whole world share $25b and Africa earns only $2.5bn, with Uganda getting only $800m.
He stressed that the struggle would continue as jobs and money is lost in the process of exporting raw material. The delegation was accompanied by the Ambassador of Kenya to Uganda Ambassador Rtd Maj Gen George Owino while moving a vote of thanks, commended Museveni for inviting the group for a fruitful lecture that enlightened their knowledge on several issues.
Additional reporting by URN
