‘’We cannot compensate you for breaking the law,’’ Museveni orders wetland encroachers to vacate

Nakasero: President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has reiterated his call to wetland encroachers to vacate the natural resource peacefully.

According to the president, the government cannot look on as some people destroy the environment.

He made the remarks on Saturday, July 20, 2024, while addressing the nation on wealth creation and other issues of national importance at State Lodge, Nakasero.

“Blaming NEMA on why they allowed people to settle in the wetlands and come later to evict them is, of course, a good point; however, it does not exonerate encroachers and their backers. Who doesn’t know what a wetland is? Are you a Ugandan, or are you from Europe? It’s the duty of everybody to defend Uganda’s survival. In any case, in the matter of the environment, we have no choice; Uganda cannot be destroyed, and we simply watch,” he said.

“Hence, all people in the wetlands should leave peacefully; you have done enough damage; we are not prosecuting you; it’s an amnesty; simply leave. We cannot compensate you for breaking the law; it’s common sense. If we say that we compensate, it’s another way of encouraging that indiscipline to continue. We have already compensated you by not prosecuting you, so you just go.”

He explained that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government sometimes uses soft methods to solve problems even when people are wrong; however, when it is a matter of life and death or the destiny of Africa is at stake, they take a decisive and uncompromising stand.

“When it comes to the environment, especially the wetlands, water bodies, and natural forces, it is a matter that is even greater than life and death; it is a threat of extinction,” he said.

“60 percent of our rainfall comes from the oceans, and 40 percent of our rain comes from local water and forest bodies. Anyone who wants to invade the lake shore, the river, the wetlands, and the natural forests is working so hard to turn the whole of Uganda into a Karamoja in terms of rain. Some people, whether they know it or don’t, are not happy that we are getting so much rain; they want the whole of Uganda to be like Karamoja, which is what they are working for. They want to dry our source of rain.”

On the issue of wealth creation, President Museveni revealed that since their transformative days of the student movement in the 1960s, their strategic long-term goal was to achieve a total socio-economic transformation in Uganda by building a modern society of the middle class and a skilled working class, as it had happened in Europe.

“In order to achieve this and given Uganda’s natural resource base, we developed a plan for a modern economy based on four money-making sectors. These are commercial agriculture with “ekibaro,” manufacturing, services, and ICT,” he said.

The President further disclosed that the NRM government’s strategic goal is to make every adult Ugandan of working age join one of these sectors either as an owner or as an employee.

“We have successfully attained four phases: the minimum economic recovery, reforming the economy that had become informal, expanding the enclave of the 3Ts (tea, tobacco, and tourism) and the 3Cs (coffee, copper, and cotton) by making them bigger, diversifying the enclave products by bringing in new products like milk and beef into the money economy, and starting the knowledge economy of using science to create products such as vaccines, automobiles, electronics, etc.,” he noted.

“However, all this could not happen if we did not work on some elements of the infrastructure like the roads, electricity, ICT backbone, etc. This is how you hear now that our economy has expanded from USD 1.5 billion in 1986 to USD 55 billion, a raw material-producing economy. This is why you always hear me insisting that this economy will jump to USD 500 billion by simply adding value to most of our raw materials.”

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