Hon Ssemujju: Museveni didn't look stressed at the address because he has been on state financed trips

FDC spokesperson and Kira Municipality member of parliament Semujju Nganda has said the President's freshness at the State of the nation address at Serena Hotel can be attributed to his recent trips that were fully funded by the state.

President Museveni addressed the nation at the Serena International Conference Centre on Thursday in the 2019 State of the Nation Address.

Now Ssemujju Nganda while appearing on NBS Frontline said that the president was fresh and he attributed this to his recent trips around the country.

He added that he didn't attend the address because the things president Museveni was going to say were annoying.

"For this particular address, it appeared like the stress has gone down, the president didn't look as stressed as he has been the last two times he has come to address the parliament. This partly because he has been on a country tour financed by the state. I didn't attend the state of nation address but I followed, reason being, President Museveni is going to say the same things and most of the things he says are annoying," Ssemujju explained.

Ssemujju added that the state of the nation address was a mere copy and paste from the budget framework paper.

"If you look at the state of the nation address, it was a copy and paste from the budget framework paper. The president is more interested in seeing the people around him happy so that they campaign for him."

Ssemujju however expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance of parliament saying that it's like a UPE school.

"Personally, I am not satisfied with the working of parliament. It is like a UPE school and if the public was judging us well, they would be an invasion of Parliament," Ssemujju said.

But government chief whip Ruth Nankabirwa disagreed. She said that the state of the nation address was intended to show the progress  towards what was promised and there was a slide to show what was done and what is still being done and this can't be boring like Semujju alleged.

Nankabirwa said President Museveni acknowledged where there were still challenges for the populace like in the still high cost of electricity. She said that President Museveni, however, pointed out that soon an electricity unit will go for 5 American cents.

But Democratic Party Chairman Norbert Mao told that panel that the country cannot celebrate President Museveni's promises because he has made many in the past but failed to fulfil many of them.

He added that investment in electricity and infrastructure serves the president more but does very little in growing the country if the government has not invested in growing its people.

"There are many pledges that the president hasn't fulfilled. If you want you grow the country, you start by growing the people, even the big infrastructure projects are conduits for corruption," Mao said.

Mao also said that even someone like Joseph Kony if he was given power for 35 years, he can build the roads and increase electricity supply.

He said that what the president delivered in his speech was supposed to be appendix.

" What the president did was not what I expected in a major speech, the entire speech should have been an appendix," Mao added

Government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo dismissed Mao's opinion as the take of someone who is uninformed. He said President Museveni was making a state of the nation address and an address by the president general of the Democratic Party.

He said that it included areas like Gulu that have been transformed from war.

He  added that President Museveni had promised Ugandans the revival of a national airline and this had come to pass. This is just the beginning and more is yet to come.