Govt jobs are not enough to solve unemployment in Uganda- Museveni

President Museveni has said it is high time youths thought outside the box by knowing that government jobs are not enough to employ all the unemployed Ugandans.

Museveni, who is also the NRM presidential candidate who was on Sunday evening meeting the party youth leaders from Kigezi sub-region at Nshwere Primary School in Kiruhura district as part of his scientific campaign meetings said there are many other ways youths can create their own jobs and not necessarily waiting for government .

“This is the message you need to take to your villages and become change agents. You should know that jobs are not only in government but in commercial agriculture. Remember government has only 480,000 jobs but as I speak, factories employ 700,000 people and the services employ 1.3 million people,”Museveni said.

“None of my children, apart from Muhoozi, a soldier is employed by government. The real jobs are in commercial agriculture, industry, services and ICT.  With these, you are sure of creating jobs.”

The President explained that by creating industrial parks in various parts of the country, he is attracting investors to start up factories where many people can get employed, other than wait to work in government, yet the opportunities are limited.

Commercial agriculture

Museveni told the youth leaders that there is a  great deal of wealth in commercial agriculture if it is done with a proper calculation.

Explaining the four-acre model that he said government has been advocating for since 1996, the President said coffee, food, pastures and fruits can be grown to fetch both money but also for home consumption.

“For example coffee has market everywhere in the world.  The number of coffee bags bought on the world market increases every day and if you grow it, you are assured of market, unlike maize or  and sugarcanes whose market may go down,” he said.

“It is the same thing with apples that can fetch shs160 million per acre in a year.  You can as well do fish farming.”

Going into details, Museveni told the group that on several occasions, many people do commercial agriculture but fail to use proper calculations and end up not benefitting from the business.

“The people here used to have local animals and those cows have value but you need like 1000 animals where you can sell like 200 per year to get some good money. However, to rear 1000 cows, you need at least three square miles of land which is not affordable by everyone. I advised them to rear the exotic breeds in small numbers and require little space but give higher yields,” he said.

“This is the same with crops. Don’t go for cotton and tea which require a big piece of land to be grown. You can rear pigs or chicken because these require a small space but give you higher yields and fetch a lot of money.”

Museveni urged the youth leaders to preach this gospel of doing wealth creation but with a calculation to their villages so that the same can be adopted by everyone to help improve the homestead incomes.

“As the educated lot, help preach this gospel to the many illiterate people in your villages. This is the message you need to take to your villages and become change agents,” he said.

Museveni however urged the youths to ask their MPs to support his idea of increasing money in the budget for the youth livelihood program, Emyooga and Women fund,all meant to wealth creation.

Government has in the last four years injected shs 7.2 billion to benefit 962 projects with 11510 youths under the Youth Livelihood Program in the Kigezi sub-region districts of Kabale, Kisoro, Kanungu, Rubanda, Rukiga, and Rukungiri whereas a total of 8702 women have benefitted from the shs3.77billion released under the women fund in the same area.

However, according to Museveni, the number of beneficiaries can go up with an increase the budget that goes into these government programs.

" Tell your MPs to ensure they put money in wealth creation funds while budgeting so that many people benefit from these programs,"he said.