President Museveni has challenged the leadership in Karamoja to lift the population out of biting poverty to prosperity.
While commissioning the Moroto Bus Terminal on Wednesday afternoon, Museveni tasked the leaders to ‘wake up’ the population to adopt to new technologies like modern agriculture to get out of poverty.
He observed that while government is working on infrastructural development, the local population should be engaging in different activities to improve on their livelihood. Museveni said Africa still has a challenge of migrating from use of old technology to new technology which is more effective and rewarding.
The president noted that the biting poverty contributes to low local revenue collection that affects development. He urged both the local community and their leaders in the region to focus on income generating activities and wealth creation. He reiterated government’s commitment to establish big water dams to address drought and water scarcity in the region.
Karamoja commands the highest poverty levels in the country with about 60% of the people in the region living below the poverty line. Besides the biting poverty levels, many households in the region are hunger stricken, leaving the population to survive on handouts.
However, Karamoja has vast mineral deposits including marble, limestone and gold, among others. Recently, government also revealed the existence of oil along Moroto-Kadam belt.
“We must get our selves from these manyattas (traditional huts). Having manyattas then it rains and you stay awake all night is not living, it is surviving. So we must build better houses, this is only possible if we abandon our subsistence farming methods…Just like I have said else where; having peace, infrastructural development is not enough, we must add household income. I urged the people of Karamoja to abandon subsistence/farming for the stomachs.” Museveni said.
To solve the problem of water scarcity in this semi-arid area, Museveni said his government is going to construct at least 20 big dams that will supply water for commercial and home consumption.
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