Keynote Opening Speech

by

H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

President of the Republic of Uganda
to
the NRM MPs Retreat
at
NALI, Kyankwanzi

8th February, 2015

I have been telling you for a long time about wealth creation and
value addition.

This is because of the big mistake of preserving

under-development among 68% of our homesteads, according to the

2001 census, by which time only 32% of the homesteads were in
the money economy.

This is a big portion of our population that has, on account of lack

of sensitization, continued with subsistence farming and abstained
from engaging in commercial agriculture.

I concentrate on these

because they are the ones that need guidance because of lack of
education or because of mis-education.

This big portion of our

population remaining in subsistence farming is partly responsible

for not yet achieving the middle income status of our country.

This does not, however, mean that the other portions of the society
are well oriented either. On this occasion, I will, therefore, tackle
the society and economy in a broader way, especially emphasizing
industrialization. Industrialization requires focusing on three major
areas: the materials and resources endowment; the human capital;
and organizing our markets as well as struggling for access to other
1

markets in Africa and abroad. The materials and resources can be

grouped into three categories: agricultural wealth: minerals wealth;
and flora and fauna as well as geographical wealth (Lakes, rivers,
mountains, etc).

Starting with agriculture, we should know that agro-processing

helped many countries in Europe and elsewhere to launch
themselves on the path of socio-economic transformation.

The

Scandinavian countries are a good example. They started off with

agro-processing and proceeded to other levels of industrialization
such as electronics e.g. Ericsson, motor-vehicles such as Scania
and Volvo, etc.

We always buy very good milk coolers from

Denmark and Tetra-pack paper packaging products dominate the

processed foods packaging, especially milk.

Agro-processing achieves the following targets:

(i)

adding shelf-life to products so that they can reach distant

markets UHT and powdered milk can reach distant markets
while fresh milk cannot; the same applies to bananas, fruits;
etc.;

(ii)

it, therefore, expands the spectrum of our exports and earns

more foreign exchange for us;

(iii)

it creates jobs so as to alleviate the problem of unemployment;

(iv)

it stimulates the development of the markets for machine

fabrication that are used in the value addition; and
it expands the tax base for the country by creating
employment for many young people who, then, get salaries
that are liable to income tax.

(v)

By adding value to our coffee, our maize, our fruits, our bananas,
our Irish potatoes, our cassava, our millet, our sorghum, our beans,
our peas, our cotton, our beef, etc, even at our present level of
production, our GDP size will expand by a factor of 10. With the
increased production levels at the homestead levels, through
Operation Wealth Creation, as well as wider value addition, our
economy can be a half trillion dollars economy in a fairly short time.
The only other factor that we need to ensure is low cost electricity
and also solving the problem of the railway to lower the transport
costs. If the grid electricity is still expensive, we can use the biofuels to generate our own electricity like the sugar factories do.
They burn the bagasse (ebikambi) and generate their own electricity.
3

To show the difference value addition brings to the economy, we

can, again, quote the example of coffee. While a kg of raw beans of
coffee would fetch Shs.2,500/- (farm gate price), ready to drink
coffee would fetch Shs. 40,000/- per kg.

That is an increase in

value of 1,600%. The same applies with tea. While a kilogramme of

unprocessed tea will go for Shs.300/-, ready to drink tea will fetch
Shs. 25,000/-. That is an increase in value of 8,333%. This is true
for all the other crops and animal products.

In addition to agriculture, the other category of resources that must

have value addition are the minerals. Again, there, the loss of value,
if exported raw, is evident. A tonne of unprocessed iron-ore (obutare
70% pure) fetches US$ 40. Refined steel goes for US$ 680. Then
this steel would go into our dams, into our high rise buildings, etc.
With alloys such as nickel, cobalt, tungsten, etc., you then produce
alloyed steel plates that can be used for cutlery, pressure pipes,
exhaust pipes, military tanks, etc.

A tonne of copper ore, less than 40% pure, will give us US$1,300.
Blister Copper (83% - 95% pure) would give us US$3,800 and
4

Cathode Copper (99.99% pure) would give us US$6,198 that is a

percentage gain, in terms of value, of 477%.

Then the cathode

copper would be used to produce copper wires for electricity

transmission and electricity generation and copper plates for
military industries such as bullet cartridges.

Vermiculite, if only concentrated, would give us US$85 a tonne. A

tonne of semi-processed vermiculite would give us US$143 and the
processed tonne would give us US$410 per tonne. Vermiculite is
used in the following products: insulation materials for (a) electrical
wires (b) brake linings for automotive industry (c) fire proofing of
structural steel and pipes.

Remember that all these additional

value addition levels will create more jobs for our children.
Therefore, it is a big loss to export all these jobs to others as well as
donating money to them.

Our fauna, flora and geography is already giving us US$ 1 billion

per annum with the little effort we have put in. As I have told you
many times, Uganda is almost unique in the whole world. Only a
part of Kenya shares that uniqueness the part of Kenya near Mt.
5

Kenya. It is almost the only part of the globe that is right on the
Equator with a high altitude (from 5,109 metres above sea level to
620 metres above sea level). This means that we get sunshine all
the year round but we also get mild, if not cold, temperatures on
account of the high altitude. That also influences the fauna and
flora.

Uganda, therefore, means four words: mild temperatures,

very green and diverse flora, very diverse fauna and unique
geography (water bodies, savannah, tropical forests and high
mountains). Uganda is un-comparable with anything I have seen
on the globe.

With peace, tourism, taking advantage of these unique features, is

booming.

However, the tourism will boom even more when we

tarmac all the roads to the tourism areas as we have done with
Mweya and Murchison Falls Park.

We are going to do the same for Bwindi and Kidepo. We shall also
build airports in Kasese and near Bwindi to shorten the road trips
from Entebbe for the tourists.

Otherwise, the private sector is

building the hotels and the lodges and they have invested in tour
6

guides. The forests also produce wood products timber, furniture,

paper, gun-butts, etc. The trees are also used in the processing of
tea.

However, Ugandans need to wake up to the mistake of drying

wetlands and cutting forests.

I long ago negotiated for you with

CNN to always have the temperatures of Kampala displayed every

day on that channel. I wanted to lure tourists by publicizing the
always mild temperatures of Uganda. I was, however, horrified when
I, recently, saw the CNN displaying that the temperatures of
Kampala were 31% !! Yes, this is the small dry season (akanda
January, February and a few days of March).

However, Kampala

never had such high temperatures even in the big dry season
(ekyaanda June and July). The Bible says: The wages of sin is
death. We shall pay for the sin of damaging the wonderful
environment God gave us for free. Whatever a man sows, that is
what he will reap as found in the Book of Galatians 6:7, in the
Bible.

It is annoying to see Abu Dhabi creating forests and water bodies

where they did not exist while Ugandans are destroying the free
heritage God gave us. The wetlands will be recovered. The Wetland
Fund I am proposing will not be for the corrupt officials and their
masters who give titles in wetlands. It will only be for the bonafide
people who were encouraged to go into the wetlands, nay not
wetlands, but, the tributaries of the Nile, by either the colonial
Government or the post-independence governments in, especially,
Kigezi, a little bit of Bushenyi and Eastern Uganda (for swamp rice).
The corrupt who have knowingly encroached on the wetlands will
have their titles cancelled.

Uganda cannot commit suicide on

account of these parasites. As much as 40%of Ugandas rain comes

from these wetlands as well as the wetlands in South Sudan and
the forests in Congo.

Finally, on the issue of human capital this is the greatest

resource. The human beings are the consumers of all manner of
products (agricultural, industrial) and services.

They are the

8

workers, technicians, designers and managers in factories as well as

the producers in agriculture. They are the innovators in terms of
research and scientific discoveries and they are the entrepreneurs.
By introducing Universal Education, we have empowered our
population. We have produced more scientists.

By 1986, Uganda was producing 79 doctors every year. We are now

graduating 343 doctors plus 10 dental surgeons every year.

We

were graduating 38 engineers every year. We are now graduating

934

engineers

producing 439.

every

year,

with

Kyambogo

University

alone

We were graduating 67 Bachelor of Sciences

(Education)) and 229 Bachelor of Sciences (Flat) qualifiers but now

(2013/14) we are producing 359 BSC (Education) and 735 BSC
(Flat) graduates, making a total of 1,094 BSC graduates.

Some

years ago, I set up an innovation fund but kept it in the Ministry of

Finance.

In the new structure of Government, I will create a dedicated

section to deal with scientific innovation. May be, we should set up
three funds: a fund for research, a fund for innovation and a fund
for commercialization of innovations. The new section of the
Government will advise us more appropriately.

In the meantime, our scientists have made a lot of inventions in

food technology, light engineering, medicines, general science and
even in electronics. With peace and proper budgeting, the sky is
the limit.
I thank you.

Yoweri K. Museveni Gen (rtd)

PRESIDENT

10

11