President Yoweri Museveni has publicly lambasted Finance Minister Hon Matia Kasaija and the people in charge of generating and distributing electricity in the country for failure to attend the silver Jubilee celebrations of the Uganda Manufacturer’s Association (UMA)
Museveni who was the chief guest at this function held on Friday evening at UMA grounds, looked around and noticed that none of the officials was present at the function yet manufacturers are the country’s biggest tax payers.
“The minister of Finance should be here because it’s where the finance comes from. The minster’s absence on this function is like a farmer who wants to harvest without going to the garden, which is not wise,” observed the president.
Museveni was responding to an issue raised by manufacturers on high interest rates on loans borrowed from various banks. The President said he didn’t have enough information and looked around for the minister’s response but to no avail.
“This issue of borrowing at 24% for manufacturer is idiotic; we agreed that we put as much as we can in Uganda Development Bank. I called them and suggested that we inject Shs 100billion in the bank but they said this would choke them and they suggested Shs 50billion at first.”
The president asked whether the UDB team was represented at the event but they weren’t.
“I am tired of doing ‘Matalisi’ work where I transfer information from one side to another. All people responsible should come and explain.”
Museveni added that while he didn’t want to insult anyone, the stakeholders were simply wasting time.
“You can’t have high electricity tariffs, high transport costs, high bank rates and say that you have a ministry of planning. what are you planning?”