President Museveni has taken a swipe at the ruling National Resistance Movement leaders whom he said are to blame for the many youths joining opposition National Unity Platform headed by Robert Kyagulanyi , also known as Bobi Wine.
Speaking at the official opening of the retreat for newly elected MPs at the National Leadership Institute(NALI) in Kyankwanzi, Museveni said whereas government put in place a number of programs for the benefit of people, leaders have failed to implement them, leaving the population frustrated.
“Some of the problems we have in areas like Kampala are due to our leaders. We brought UPE and USE but the local elites have refused to implement them. We brought UPE but head teachers are still charging money yet leaders don’t want to speak out for fear of antagonizing them(head teachers). It is those children dropping out school who are joining NUP,” Museveni said on Thursday afternoon.
“So this time, we must agree that anybody who doesn’t implement UPE must go because they are creating problems for us.”
Museveni, who is also the NRM chairperson, said the ruling party MPs should know their mission but also find ways of achieving it.
He warned the legislators against wasting time in public relations instead of working for their voters.
“Your predecessors sometimes don’t attend to such things and think leadership is public relations by attending burials and sitting in churches the whole day even if they have nothing to contribute. It will fail because people are looking for solutions and not public relations. When you don’t solve people’s problems, they abandon you,” he said.
“I want you to appreciate the issues that affect the masses and address them practically. All this, we have talked about it before but people don’t take them serious and by the time they realize this, it is too late.”
A total of 243 newly elected NRM MPs plus the 27 Central Executive Committee members and those from the East African Legislative Assembly are attending the three week retreating for the ruling party.
According to the NRM Secretary General, Justine Kasule Lumumba, the retreat is meant to help newly elected party MPs grasp its ideology in line with the social economic transformation of the people.
“We want to make sure the NRM ideology sinks but also the social economic transformation message to our new leaders,” she said.