A pledge by President Museveni to give 18million garden hoes to six million rural homesteads has caused a stir within government officials.
Museveni while campaigning for his fifth term in office in 2015 directed the Prime Minister to procure 18 million hoes in the 2016/17 budget, arguing that the hoes would boost food security and incomes for small landowners which would spur Uganda to an industrial economy in 2040.
However, the hoes would be distributed in phases to accommodate budget constraints.
Now a section of minister and Members of Parliament are accusing the Prime Minister’s office of using the same hoes to contribute to the political capital of specific politicians and ministers.
“Which criteria did they use to select only ministers to carry out the distribution,” MP Bubulo West Rose Mutonyi said.
Mutonyi claims that the ministers who have been given control over the distribution are using the same hoes to campaign ahead of the 2021 elections.
‘This is a very bad period. It is a highly pre-political season; everybody is fighting for themselves. And we hear that ministers from the same village, have been given control of the hoes.,” she said.
The hoes were already subject in court, with the opposition claiming Museveni bribed voters by making such a promise, however, the Electoral Commission said Museveni’s pledge was made in his capacity as the president of Uganda.
