Ggoobi expressed concern that during heated election periods, many Ugandans tend to abandon their economic activities and focus excessively on politics, which negatively impacts productivity and economic growth.
Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury (PSST) in the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development, 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, which 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,
he indicates; that 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 not to be mindful of their
respective roles in growing the economy and future after the elections.
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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.
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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.
