The State Minister for Microfinance, Haruna Kasolo has said most Ugandans are poor because they spend a lot of time politicking instead of working.
The minister made the remarks on Thursday afternoon while officiating at a sensitization program for locals in Entebbe municipality to form saccos and save money as part of the Emyooga presidential initiative.
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“Many people want to politick yet they don’t gain anything from it. You should leave it for us politicians because we are paid for it and you earn nothing out of it,”Kasolo said.
“Many of you escort politicians as well as abusing others(politicians) but at the end of the day, you earn nothing. Politicians hoodwink you to join the struggle but the truth is that it is their struggle and their families and not you. You had better wake up.”
The minister said that Ugandans ought to change their mindset and start spending most of their time working or thinking about ways of getting out of poverty, other than politicking.
According to Kasolo, government has introduced many programs to alleviate poverty but almost all of them have not achieved the desired impact because the would-be beneficiaries don’t participate.
“Now look at this Emyooga program, many of you would be looking at the shs30 million to be given to each constituency sacco and ignore saving as the main idea behind it,” Kasolo said.
The minister explained that whereas government will inject the shs30 million seed capital, this is too little compared to what members can achieve through their savings.
“This program will add onto the earlier ones like Operation Wealth Creation, Bonnabaggawale and many others but will not be successful if people’s mindset is not focused. You should not look at the money from government but the idea of saving.”
According to Alfred Eboku Ejanu, the head of Credit and Operations at the Microfinance Support Centre, the main idea behind the Emyooga initiative is to encourage members of the public to save through their various categories of work they do.
“This initiative is special because it brings together people of the same trade to save for development,”Ejanu said.
As part of the initiative, members doing the same job are encouraged to form associations at parish level and later join the main sacco at constituency level in which government through the Microfinance Support Centre will inject shs30 million for members to borrow.
Government has injected shs560 million for the 18 saccos in each constituency throughout the country.
