President Museveni has outlined an ambitious post-election economic agenda centered on industrialisation, value addition and skills development, arguing that Uganda and Africa cannot achieve prosperity while exporting raw materials and importing finished products.
Speaking during his swearing-in ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala, Museveni said Uganda’s future economic growth depends on expanding manufacturing, commercial agriculture, ICT and services, while equipping citizens with practical skills aligned to labour market needs.
The President pointed to locally manufactured electric buses developed by Kiira Motors Corporation as evidence that Uganda is gradually transitioning from a consumer economy to a producer economy.
“Those are buses now produced by your own people from zero, totally designed and produced. There is a cry about petrol in the world. For us, we shall go electric if the petrol disappears,” Museveni said.
He noted that the National Resistance Movement government had already delivered peace, infrastructure and basic public services, but stressed that true economic transformation would only happen if households actively participate in wealth creation.
“The challenge of the NRM is that there is peace, there is infrastructure, there are services in schools and health centres,” he said. “But you must be engaged in wealth creation as an individual, as a family or a company.”
Museveni credited government programmes such as Operation Wealth Creation and the Parish Development Model for increasing the number of Ugandan households engaged in the money economy, saying participation had grown from 32 percent in 2013 to 67 percent today.
He argued that expanding economic participation across all households would ultimately generate sufficient employment opportunities for both Ugandans and refugees residing in the country.
The President also called for urgent reforms in the education sector, saying Uganda must prioritise technical and market-driven training over academic programmes that do not match labour market demands.
“This is where we need to retune our educational system to concentrate on imparting skills to learners that are needed in the labour market,” he said.
Linking Uganda’s ambitions to broader African integration, Museveni criticised the continued export of unprocessed minerals and agricultural products, describing it as a major economic setback for the continent.
Using gold exports as an example, he said Africa loses significant value by failing to refine its resources locally.
“If the gold is processed to 99.9 percent purity, you get US dollars 168,000,” he said. “If you export unprocessed gold, you get only around US dollars 60,000.”
He described the practice of exporting raw materials as a “strategic blunder” that weakens African economies and limits job creation and purchasing power across the continent.
Museveni urged African governments and investors to prioritise manufacturing and value addition, arguing that stronger industrial economies would expand markets and increase consumer demand within Africa.
He also highlighted Uganda’s ongoing investments in vaccines, pharmaceuticals, electronics and automobile manufacturing, saying the long-term goal is to shift more citizens from subsistence agriculture into manufacturing, ICT and services.
“With more value addition for our agricultural raw materials, our mineral raw materials and our knowledge economy of automobiles, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and electronics, there will be more people in manufacturing, services and ICT than in agriculture,” he said.
The speech formed a central part of Museveni’s broader economic vision presented before regional leaders, diplomats and thousands of supporters attending the ceremony in Kampala.