jobs and wealth creation for the youth
Post on 07-Dec-2015
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BUILDING THE FOUNDATION IN ORDER TO CREATE
MORE JOBS AND WEALTH FOR THE UGANDA FAMILIES
Greetings to the youth of Uganda.
St. Paul had an efficient system of communicating with the
early Christian communities in the form of the Epistles to the
respective groups. The word “epistles” comes from a Greek
word “epistole” and means a formal or written
communication. However, my understanding is that the word
epistle means a letter in the language of today.
I would, therefore, like to use the same method to
communicate my views to the youth regarding the problems
they face and opportunities that are available to them today
in Uganda.
Let us start with the problems first:
1. The most pressing problem the youth face, today, are
jobs. In 1969, the Universities of East Africa combined,
were graduating 476 numbers of students per year.
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In 1970, when Makerere University became
independent, they were graduating 854 numbers of
students. Even at that time, it was beginning to be
difficult for the university graduates, with general
degrees, to find jobs quickly in the public service. By
that time, the phase of “Africanizing the public service”
jobs was over. Today, the universities in Uganda alone,
are graduating 40,000 numbers of students per annum.
The numbers, therefore, are much more than in the
1970s. Yet, the public service jobs have not and could
not have expanded correspondingly. Except for the
teaching service, the armed forces, the police and
prisons services, the rest of the public services have
expanded only marginally. These sectors cannot,
therefore, take on many graduates. Yet, the medical
services, the engineering sectors, the teaching of
science subjects in schools and some of the other
science ─ oriented professional sectors, still have alot of
unmanned jobs even in the public service, not to
mention the private sector or jobs that are manned by
foreigners.
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With the population of 35 million people, bearing in mind
the World Health Organization (WHO) population: doctor
ratio of 500 population for one doctor, Uganda needs
70,000 doctors. We only, however, have 2,813
registered doctors (both in government and private
health centres) i.e. 1,055 in government, 882 in private
and the rest are self- employed in the various clinics.
The global ratio of engineer to population as
recommended by the United Nations Education,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is 1
engineer for at most 2,000 people in a country.
However, in some countries like Israel it is 1:74; USA
1:118; Kenya 1:6,328; Uganda 1:90,000. In Uganda we
only have about 5,300-6,000 registered engineers. This
is inspite of the increased tempo of training both doctors
and engineers, by building new universities ─
government and private.
By 1986, we were graduating only 79 doctors per year at
Makerere University. We are now graduating 343
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doctors plus 10 dental surgeons per annum in both
government and private universities in Uganda.
We were graduating 38 engineers by 1986. We are now
graduating 934 engineers every year, with Kyambogo
University alone producing 439. Yet, we still have the
gap as pointed out above in manning the job
opportunities available.
In the social sciences sector, on the other hand, there is
big over-subscription of the new graduates who find
difficulty in getting jobs in both the government and
private sectors. When it comes to the question of jobs,
therefore, this is the paradox that we need to deal with:
on the one hand, a large number of unmanned science
oriented professional jobs and, on the other hand, a
large number of unemployed graduates mainly with
degrees of social sciences.
The answers to this paradox have been the following:
(i) putting pressure on the Ministry of Education to give
career guidance to all of our children in secondary
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schools on the jobs available in the economy of Uganda
and the world at large;
(ii) expanding science education by insisting that 70% of
government sponsorship should go to science courses;
(iii) helping the youth, through soft loans, to start any
livelihood enterprises that may be different from the
courses they studied at the university in the four sectors
of the economy; these sectors are: agriculture, industry,
services and ICT.
(iv) innovation fund for the science graduates who may have
any projects they want to implement;
(v) recruitment into the army, prisons and police where
general education is useful in enhancing the trainability
and the general understanding of the officers and
militants;
(vi) encouraging the graduates, most of whom speak good
English, to join the Business Processes Outsourcing
(BPO) in the form of ICT call centres and outsourced
services such as auditing, accounting, etc. This is where
customers, in distant places like USA and Canada,
outsource these services from our youth based here in
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Uganda but using the internet services that have been
enhanced with the new ICT backbone on land and the
undersea cable from Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam;
(vii) re-tooling of our graduates that may have done social
science courses but would now be willing to do technical
courses that are more needed in the job market; and
(viii) the proliferating of science and computer labs in all
primary and secondary schools, in order to give them a
more sound science knowledge base at an early age.
I recently, for instance, advised one youth to do a
secretarial service diploma in addition to the degree that
would make her much more employable. This can be
extended to other fields of technical knowledge.
In the NRM Manifesto, I intend to propose that this re-
tooling of graduates be done at government cost. This is
some support, a type of compensation, for the families
that would have sponsored their children privately
through university education, only to end up with
unemployed graduates.
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2. Above, we have talked at length about university
graduates. We have laid out the paradox that is found in
many developing countries, that are beginning to move
forward, of a large number of unemployed social science
graduates, on the one hand, as well as a large number of
unmanned science oriented jobs in both the public and
the private sectors, on the other hand.
Yet, it is not only the graduate jobs that are unmanned.
Even technical jobs that require diplomas and
certificates may be unmanned or manned by foreigners
or are manned by unqualified people. When it comes,
for instance, to machine operators in factories or road
equipment, you may find either foreigners or untrained
Ugandans manning those units.
When launching the Lwampanga-Namasale ferry, I got
very uncomfortable when I discovered that the operators
of the ferry had been trained on the job by the suppliers
of the ferry from Denmark. I, immediately, ordered for
the starting of marine technical courses at Namasagali
University College, which is a branch of Busitema
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University. We are, therefore, planning to build a
technical school in every district first and, eventually, in
each constituency. Some of the technical schools will
cover the broad spectrum of skills e.g. machine
operators, building, carpentry, motor-mechanics, metal
work, ceramics, etc. Others will be more specialized
such as the Kigumba Petroleum Institute which is
specializing in petroleum and gas or Namasagali
University which should specialize in Marine courses
(boat drivers, ferry technicians, water navigators etc).
This is not to forget the science teacher colleges, the
medical auxiliaries’ colleges, etc. We had intended to
build a vocational school in each sub-county. It,
however, turned out to be very expensive. Therefore,
the present target of a technical school per constituency
is more realizable. We already have 57 Technical
Institutes for S.4 leavers of the different categories, 4
Tourism Institutes, 5 Technical Colleges and 42
Technical Institutes and Community Polytechnics for P7
leavers (Vocational schools).
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3. The reader of this letter would have noticed that the
heading of the document: “Building the Foundation in
order to create more Jobs and Wealth for the Ugandan
families”. This is because you cannot easily do what I
have laid down above, if you have not created the
necessary foundation. The necessary foundation
includes the following:
adequate and affordable electricity;
good roads that lower the transport costs;
the railway and water transport that further lower –
transport costs more than the roads;
universal primary and secondary education that improve
the literacy and numeracy of the population;
the market integration in the East Africa and the African
region that is providing markets for the products of our
agriculture, industry, services and ICT as well as other
skills;
universal immunization and other health programs that
keep the population healthy and saves the families from
spending too much money and time caring for the sick
members of the family as well as being able to work
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without excessive absentism on account of poor health
for the individuals concerned;
security and peace in the whole country so that
producers of wealth and services are not impeded in
their pursuits; and
a corruption-free public service that would facilitate
rather than impede the efforts of Ugandans and
foreigners that would be pursuing any of the gainful
efforts I have outlined above.
If we do not have the above as a foundation, you cannot
sustainably execute this vision of job and wealth
creation. Hence, the THREE PILLARS OF PROSPERITY
FOR ALL. The three pillars are: the foundation, wealth
creation and job creation. All these nevertheless, need
funding.
In order to see the linkage among the three pillars, let us
take the example of electricity and transport
bottlenecks. After many years and efforts of trying to
get a coffee processor and a high quality textile factory,
we, finally, succeeded in getting two companies. One
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called Vinci, will roast, grind, package and brand our
coffee so that Uganda can supply coffee consumers in
the world directly without going through other middle
men.
Similarly, we also got a textile manufacturer ─ Fine
Spinner ─ who will use Ugandan cotton to produce high
quality products. Both of them, however, pointed out
that electricity that costs more than 5 US cents per unit
will render the two enterprises unprofitable. Yet, once
Vinci is implemented, it will create 287 jobs and earn
120 million dollars, on the average, in foreign exchange,
per annum. Fine Spinners has already created 800 jobs
in Kampala alone; 6,000 small holder farms for cotton in
Kasese and, by 2017, it will be earning 23 million dollars
foreign exchange per annum.
Therefore, if we did not solve the problem of electricity,
not only availability but affordability, we would lose that
amount of money and that number of jobs. On the issue
of roads and transport in general, the best examples are
the new roads we have just constructed.
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Recently, I addressed a rally in the Isingiro area. One of
the speakers told me that the price of banana bunches
has gone up. When I inquired what the cause was, I was
told that, on account of the brand new road in the area,
many transporters were bringing their vehicles to that
area because the road was no longer costly to operate
on and, therefore, the demand for bananas had gone up
and, hence, the price of bananas has gone up.
When you look at the railway from Mombasa, it now
takes 21 days to bring a container from Mombasa to
Kampala and it costs US dollars 2,100. When the new
standard gauge railway is finished, it will take 24 hours
(one day) for the same container to move from Mombasa
to Kampala and will cost US dollars 1,650. In terms of
comparative cost per unit, the present railway cost is
US$ 2,100 and the future one will be US dollars 1,650,
which means we shall be saving US dollars 450 per
container. The same container transported by road
today costs 3200 dollars and takes 7-11 days.
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Some time ago, we worked on the Sembabule piped
water supply and I was satisfied that the people of
Sembabule town would be having piped water in their
homes, restaurants, hotels. However, recently, when I
went there, I was told the pump was not being used. In
otherwords, the people of Sembabule were without clean
piped water and yet the water system was already
operational. What was the cause? Lack of grid electricity
and depending on diesel for pumping which was
expensive and not affordable.
Therefore, creating a foundation that is adequate and
affordable is unavoidable in the battle for job creation
and wealth creation. Some of the manufacturers are
forced to generate their own electricity so as to avoid
the expensive electricity supplied by the grid. The sugar
mills use this method by generating electricity from the
bagasse of their sugar-canes.
Fortunately, the new dams we are building at Karuma
and Isimba will produce a unit of electricity at either US
5 cents per unit or less. We are also studying ways of
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how we can re-finance Bujagali by compensating the
developers who used expensive money in building that
dam so that their price comes down in order to make it
affordable to the consumers, especially, the
manufacturers. High costs of doing business in an
economy drive away investors. Low costs of doing
business in an economy attract investors.
Therefore, if you hear somebody talking about wealth or
job creating but without talking about the foundation,
you should, then, know that he/she is not serious or
he/she is not honest.
4. Most of what we have talked about above requires
government expenditure. However, the government
does not spend money that it does not have. Therefore,
tax collection becomes very critical. Nevertheless, you
cannot collect taxes if you don’t have enterprise
operators that you are taxing.
On account of the collapse of the economy between
1970 and1986, the tax base of Uganda was very narrow.
That is why in 1986 we collected only 5 billion shillings in 14
a year. Today, we are collecting 12,000 billion shillings
per year. Why are we collecting more money now than
in 1986? It is because we have got more businesses to
tax and more consumers to tax. Therefore, expanding
the tax base is also a precursor to job and wealth
creation. That, however, is not all; not only do we need
to widen the tax base as a precursor to solve the above
problems, it is also crucial that we prioritize the way we
spend this money.
If we want to be everywhere at the same time, we shall
end up being nowhere. If we want to hit in all directions
with our fist, we shall end up knocking down nothing.
The Banyankore say that: “Owabinga ibiri imutsiga”. This
means that when you are hunting, you should not target
more than one animal at one time. Target one animal,
successfully shoot it and, then, go to another animal.
The NRM, by prioritizing expenditure on the roads,
electricity, education for all, immunization, security and
ICT backbone, we have laid a foundation of wealth and
job creation. How? Making it easy for entrepreneurs to
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start their businesses in Uganda, do so in a secure
atmosphere and where they can make profits, are very
critical preconditions for dealing with the issue of wealth
and jobs.
5. There is also another foundation issue. This is the
strategic question of somebody buying what you
produce ─ whether a good or a service. If you produce a
good or a service and nobody buys it or a few people
buy it, your business will go bankrupt. Therefore, apart
from the internal market of Uganda, we need the
regional market as well as access to the international
markets. Accordingly, right from 1986, we started
working with our partners in East Africa to revive the
East African common market.
I salute Mzee Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Mzee Arap Moi who
helped me revive this market in the community. I also salute
President Paul Kagame and President Nkurunziza, who, later,
joined the community. This has now created a market for the
East African producers of goods and services, the Ugandans
included.
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We have not only created market for our goods and services
in East Africa but, also, we have negotiated with the
Americans, the European Union, the Chinese, the Indians and
many others on the access to their markets.
Therefore, the Ugandan innovators and producers along with
all other East Africans cannot say they don’t have the market
to sell their products to.
These are some of the few issues that are linked with the
efforts for wealth and job creation.
I thank you very much. We shall discuss more.
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni P R E S I D E N T
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