PHOTO: Kagenyi Lukka, Author
BY KAGENYI LUKKA
IN February 2022, our revolutionary leader, President Yoweri Museveni launched the Parish Development Model (PDM) at a well-attended ceremony in Kibuku district.
If the PDM programme is well-implemented, President Museveni said, it will lift 17.5 million Ugandans in 3.5 million households out of poverty.
Bringing the about 39% homesteads that are grappling with subsistence ways of life into the money economy was the task that President Museveni gave to all leaders, and by extension to all citizens.
This mobilization is part and parcel of the pledge that our Government and ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) pledged in the 2021-2026 manifesto, which detailed the mission to ensure efficient and effective service delivery in order to transform the country.
Increasing resources mobilization, improving planning and ensuring accountability are the other elements that will drive service delivery.
So, regardless of anyone’s position in Government, party structures or even your status in the country, it is incumbent upon you to aggressively push for service delivery.
This also means that monitoring of all Government projects must be a norm rather than an exception if we are to register service deliver.
And this is an easy task because our leader, President Museveni, has already ensured peace and stability in our country. Uganda is now peaceful from one corner to another.
Therefore, it is important for leaders in all corners of the country to ensure that citizens get services.
Sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, agriculture, among others must be clearly uplifted to enable citizens receive services on time and promptly.
For instance, within the education sector, President Museveni’s stellar programmes of the Universal Primary Education (PLE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE), have enabled thousands of pupils and students to go to school.
The First Lady, Mama Janet Museveni, who is also the Minister of Education and Sports, has also time and again encouraged parents to embrace this universal education programme and enroll their children into Government schools.
However, on a number of occasions, head teachers and other unserious people within various Government schools have frustrated this universal education mission by charging fees from children.
This is treason. And all efforts must be developed to tame this habit.
So, we need team work in Government and generally as a country to face these challenges that have bogged down service delivery across the country.
It is only the effective implementation of Government programmes that will transform our country.
Actually, when we ensure that Government projects and programmes are implemented, we shall automatically attract people to the ruling NRM.
For our leaders in Cabinet, President Museveni already cut out their work during the swearing in ceremony in 2021.
The President said that the focus of Cabinet ministers should be service delivery and championing the fight against corruption.
For emphasis, this is what President Museveni told Cabinet ministers: “This Government must be one of service delivery. I don’t want to hear any more outcries from the people. People are crying because of evictions. This Cabinet must look into that.”
He gave these Ministers five targets—cohesion, fight against corruption, ensuring the integration of East Africa and Africa, patriotism and ensuring service delivery.
“This is a cabinet of cohesion in the system. I want the program of National Resistance Movement to be implemented enthusiastically. It must be a cabinet of no corruption. You people should be careful. There is nothing I don’t know. I appeal to the ministers not to ask for anything from anybody. If you want to be durable leaders, don’t seek and accept favour from anybody. And don’t tolerate corruption under you,” the President said.
So, if our leader, President Museveni, has already cut out our work; why should we fail on ensuring that service delivery is achieved.
Why should 39% of homesteads continue to wallow in the so-called non-money economy?
In short, we should all work towards the fulfilment of the NRM promise of an efficient and effective service delivery agenda because if we succeed on this, the 2026 presidential bid for President Yoweri Museveni, the General of African resistance, will simply be a walk in the park.
The writer Kagenyi Lukka is the Deputy RDC Manafwa District
