The Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury (PSST) in the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development, Ramathan Ggoobi has cautioned Ugandans against getting overly excited as the country nears the next election cycle.
Ggoobi expressed concern that during heated election periods, many Ugandans tend to abandon their economic activities and focus excessively on politics.
According to him, this negatively impacts productivity and economic growth.
He urged citizens to remain steadfast and ensure that their income-generating activities are not disrupted by the heightened political atmosphere.
Failure to do so, he warned, could undermine the country’s economic growth prospects at both the micro and macro levels.
“The country has invested a lot in job and wealth creation programs, and it is important that these initiatives remain productive despite the busy political season,” Ggoobi emphasized.
For instance, in the last two and years, the government has injected Shillings two trillion into the Parish Development Model-PDM program, whose investment directly went into the agricultural production sector.
Shillings 553 billion have so far been invested into Emyoga projects, 100 billion shillings in the Small Business Recovery fund, 495 billion shillings committed to fund the Agriculture Credit Facility-ACF, 168 billion shillings into Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Program-UWEP, 12.5 billion shillings to the Youth Venture Capital Fund among programs.
Ggoobi warns that the seasonal political gimmicks should not crumble such substantial investments that are intended to further grow the economy right from individual households.
He called upon both the citizens and the intending aspirants to be mindful of their respective roles in growing the economy and future after the elections.
He indicates that as a remedy, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development together with the different stakeholders have worked on possible mitigation measures, to ensure that the country’s revenue collection capacity is not bogged down by the campaign and election period.
Notably, Ggoobi’s advice comes shortly after the various Civil Society Organizations have just renewed demands for the establishment of strict laws regulating campaign financing and commercialization of politics in Uganda.
Henry Muguzi, the Executive Director of the Alliance of Finance Monitoring-ACFIM in a joint statement issued last month, observed that the commercialization of politics has continued to breed violence in Uganda’s political space, especially during elections, where it turns into a do-or-die as participants do whatever is possible to avoid losing the money invested.
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