Uganda’s enemies are jealous of our development, funding criminals to destabilize us - Museveni

President Museveni has said that Uganda’s enemies have resorted to funding criminals after feeling jealousy of the country’s development.

Speaking at the  56th Independence celebrations in Kyotera on Tuesday, Museveni said that Uganda has achieved a lot in the past years since the NRA captured power citing the road network, growth of the economy and cheap electricity as the big achievements that he said make Ugandans proud of their country.

“That strong foundation has enabled our economy grow very fast. Last year we had anticipated   the economy to grow by 5.8 percent but found out it had grown by 6.1 percent. It surpassed what we had anticipated and next year will have grown by seven percent or more,”Museveni said.

However according to the president Uganda’s detractors are now jealousy of the development the country has achieved and have resorted to all means to stagnate the development.

“The people who are fighting us now have fear because they see Uganda has power and all that was missing has been implemented. Roads have been made. It seems these criminals are jealously of our growth. They carry out the crimes to scare us.”

A number of high profile figures including Joan Kagezi, Maj.Muhammad Kiggundu, AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi and recently ASP Muhammad Kirumira among others  have in past few years been shot dead by unknown assailants in various Kampala Metropolitan Areas.

Museveni  explained that after dealing with rural terrorism and making rural areas safe through building a robust  security capacity, criminals have now resorted to attacking urban centres and killing people.

“Those who wanted us to remain stagnant found way of fighting us. Terrorists (murderers) had seen weak point in towns where we had not concentrated.”

Describing them as terrorists, Museveni said criminals had taken advantage of the large population in towns and big numbers of boda bodas and motor vehicles to orchestrate crime but dared them to declare war against Uganda.

“Their strength was in hiding and the challenge was getting more eyes, ears and noses.  If they want to start a war, they should come out and openly declare just like we did as NRA".

“Uganda is on the ascent and nobody can destabilize it no matter how hard they try. We have built a strong and professional army that can defeat any unrest."

Museveni said that the criminals(murderers) are cowards who will soon be history after the installation of CCTV cameras along major highways , towns and cities.

The president had earlier  commissioned the multi-billion CCTV camera project  that will see a total of 5,552   installed in various places around the country with the Kampala Metropolitan districts of Wakiso, Kampala and Mukono taking a lion’s share with 3233 cameras on 1248 sites.

He cited an example of guns used by the Karamojong to carryout cattle rustling which he said were more than ones owned by the Idi Amin army but noted that government was able to collect all of them from the Karamojong.

He warned criminals against attacking the country adding that they would be crushed.

Museveni however noted that the remaining challenge is changing the people’s mindset to adopt commercial agriculture other than subsistence farming.

He asked leaders to help on educating the masses on practicing commercial farming.

This year’s independence celebrations run on the theme; ‘Standing tall to celebrate 56 years of Independence’