We need to improve the quality of our exports to compete at world market as a country

The Burahya County Member of Parliament Hon. Margret Mugisa Muhanga has called for a collective responsibility especially by the duty bearers to monitor & supervise government programs /projects. Margret said unless we become responsible to play our roles right as leaders, economic development may still be a dream for our country especially as we work to attain the middle income status by 2020.

Hon. Margret Mugisa Muhanga  said these when she was co- hosted together with Hon. Alex Ruhunda the Fort portal municipality Member of Parliament on ToroDev supported ‘Orukurato’ program that is aired live every Saturday 8:00pm-10:00pm on HITS Fm a local radio station in Fort Portal. The two members of parliament were responding to issues raised by local citizens from the previous talk shows on HITS Fm especially on the challenges of Operation Wealth Creation, a government  program that replaced NAADS to fight poverty & increase income at household level.

 ‘’Uganda is one of the countries exporting tea at the East African market but it is of very poor quality compared to other countries even our neighbours Rwanda, where Uganda’s kilogram of tea costs less than $3 compared to $ 5 for Rwanda at the East African market’’, said Hon. Margret  Mugisa Muhanga. She urged farmers and other stakeholders to ensure quality of tea right from plucking to packaging if our farmers and Uganda as a country are to benefit from cash crop production.

Burahya Couunty Member of Parliament Hon. Margret Mugisa Muhanga

She promised to lobby government to support farmers with fertilizers and other farm inputs in order to raise the quality of our tea to the world market and that this will increase farmers’ income at house hold level & also improve the country’s economic development. Hon. Margret Said that we have other sectors that can help to raise our economy  such as Tourism  where we need to modernize our hotels, build canopies for birding, advocate for industrialization such that the unemployment syndrome especially our youth can be checked to create jobs for the people of this country.

During the 2 hours discussion Hon. Alex Ruhunda said, Operation wealth creation is not a bad program but acknowledged luck of supervision, lack of institutional leadership, etc he said it is true farmers receive seeds late and in small quantities and sometimes without information from the people delivering the supplies something he promised to discuss in parliament so that the program can serve it’s intended goal.

Hon. Alex Ruhunda Member of Parliament Fort Portal Municipality

Hon. Alex said Uganda has many well designed programs but the problem comes during implementation which brings about misuse of resources because few benefit hence hindering economic development because much is invested in the hands of few individuals. Hon Alex pledged to advance issues to do with mechanization of agriculture, industrialization, attracting more investors, improving the road net work, etc such that people can get jobs and those already in agriculture be helped on how best they can have value addition for their produce in order to compete with other countries and also develop the country’s economy.

 For such programs to continue running on air we recognize the commitments of SIDA, NED, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, CIPESA & all our partners in development for the financial and technical support.