President Museveni has said Uganda needs to tap into its more educated population and convert them into job creators.
The president who was speaking at the 2017/2018 budget Day noted that unlike in the past where Uganda's literacy rate was low, now it is high and a great strength for the country. He says at 75%, this means Uganda can have great transformation economically.
He says although many of them could have done courses that cannot get them jobs, they can easily join the entrepreneurship class as they are educated.
He says the army and Police have already benefited from the educated youth as they are very easy to train and guide because of Education. Museveni called upon leaders to pay attention to the new changes in literacy rates.
//Cue in: "Now another factor…
Cue out:…easily get jobs."//
The president's remarks come after finance minister Matia Kasaija presented a 29 trillion shillings budget at the Serena Conference Hall today.
President Museveni recently launched the presidential initiative on skilling the girl-child which is seeing the training of over 700 girls. Most of the girls are trained in catering and hotel services.
In his state of the nation address on Tuesday, President Museveni revealed that he had personally used his budget to fund savings groups and investments of roadside furniture makers in Nsambya, Najjera and Wandegeya among others.
The 2014 census revealed that School attendance increased with the central region at, 89.58 percent compared to 41.3 percent in 2002.
In the Northern region, school attendance jumped from 37.8 to 75.6 percent, while in the Eastern region it moved from 42.1 to 90.2 percent. In the Western region, school attendance now stands at 82.3 percent, up from 40.6 percent in 2002.
Out of 29 trillion shillings budget, Works and Transport takes the highest allocation at 4.8 trillion Shillings. This is followed by Energy and education at 2.4 trillion, Health at 1.8 trillion and Security at 1.4 trillion Shillings among others.
Agriculture which employs majority of Ugandans is allocated 863 billion Shillings, while Water and Environment takes 595 billion Shillings.
At least 7.6 trillion Shillings will go towards recurrent expenditure, 11.4 trillion for development expenditure while 9.9 trillion is for statutory expenditure.
The 2017/2018 budget is presented under the theme: "Industrialisation for job creation and shared prosperity".
Minister Kasaija has named seven strategies that are to help the country achieve the middle income status by 2020.
The strategies highlighted to attain the middle income status include re-organizing the agriculture sector to increase production and productivity, addressing the impact of climate change to eliminate reliance on rain-fed agriculture, protecting and restoring the environment, and harnessing the huge tourism potential among others.
The other strategies include industrializing the economy anchored on agro-processing and extraction of minerals, oil and gas, reforming the financial sector to provide long term capital and reduce interest rates, speeding up execution of government projects and programmes and the ruthlessly dealing with corruption.
Kasaija said that with these actions, the economy is expected to rebound to an annual growth rate of 7 percent in the medium term at a minimum.
Speaking about the state of the economy, Kasaija said that despite a number of challenges, Uganda's economy is not in recession but growing moderately.
Alex Otto
Freelancer
Olive Nakatudde