Presidential Candidate Mugisha Muntu took the campaign to the far western hilly district of Bundibugyo. Mugisha Muntu was accompanied by among other leaders, the National Campaign Manager Hon. Winnie Kiiza and the National Leader for Youth in Higher Institutions of Learning, David Bala. On their way to Bundibugyo, they paid a courtesy visit to the family of Late Tweheyo Robert who was the Alliance for National Transformation Coordinator for Bundibugyo. Tweheyo Robert died 2 weeks ago and the team made this stop at his home to commiserate with his mother, widow, children, and the rest of the community.
In Bundibugyo, Mugisha Muntu spoke to the citizens about the transformation of agriculture, which will help to raise the standards of living for the people in the area. He said that the next ANT government will re-establish cooperative unions, which will eliminate middlemen who have made it an occupation of cheating cocoa farmers in the area, and in the short run, the unions will help to stabilize prices. “We shall reestablish cooperative Unions in Uganda to help small scale farmers to gain from their produce. We know that when peasants prosper, the country prospers. We shall put in place mechanisms of price stability but also ensure that locally, cocoa can be processed, packed, and exported,” Mugisha Muntu said.
Mugisha Muntu further revealed that the next ANT government will do whatever it takes to bridge the widening economic and financial divide in the country. He said that the country is faced with a situation where a small group of people owns everything whereas the rest are languishing in poverty. He assured the people of Bundibugyo that the next ANT government will ensure that this gap is bridged. “We cannot have stability when a country is said to be prospering but out of 100 people, only 10 have money. Such financial injustices will be reversed with our progressive financial policies that will prioritise inclusivity,” Mugisha Muntu said.
The Presidential candidate also reminded supporters that a country that has an educational system built on a shaky foundation can never develop. He cited examples of countries that have developed because of investing in high educational standards such as Japan and Singapore. He said that these countries rose to the top largely because of investing in human capital development since they had no natural resource wealth like other global economic powers. Mugisha Muntu revealed that the next ANT government will do everything humanly possible to improve educational standards, starting from kindergarten to university level. He assured citizens that this will be achieved through ensuring adequate staffing, equipping schools, and institutions with adequate teaching facilities, and retraining university graduates to equip them with relevant skills. Bridging the divide between public and private schools will enable the country to streamline the education system which will eventually ignite human capital development.
Mugisha Muntu also said that the ANT government will revamp the health system and make it functional to ensure that people’s healthcare is raised to the required standard. “To the best of my knowledge, healthcare doesn’t mean buildings, it’s the service within those buildings. However, buildings are also important,” he said. He assured the citizens that the next ANT government will ensure that health workers are properly remunerated and given adequate supplies to use while at work. “A health worker who is psychologically disturbed by financial challenges, cannot give adequate services to the patient. What ensures healthcare in these health facilities is not the physical presence of these health workers, it is their intrinsic motivation to provide the service. We will ensure good working conditions for these health workers,” Mugisha Muntu said.
Furthermore, Mugisha Muntu said that our health system has been broken down by many issues including brain drain. “There are many Ugandans who fly abroad for treatment and on reaching those hospitals, they find themselves being treated by Ugandan specialists working in those countries. How do you account for that? We must improve the working conditions for these health workers if our health system has to improve. This is where our focus will be,” he said.
Regarding tourism, Mugisha Muntu revealed that tourism in Uganda is a ‘hanging fruit,’ despite the abundant tourism potential of the country, including flora, fauna, and cultural diversity.
He cited that our biggest undoing in Uganda and the region has been a lack of marketing strategy for the industry. He further stressed that the sector lacks training of the human resource citing that this is manifested in the hotel business that lacks customer service. Mugisha Muntu said that the next ANT government will empower domestic investors in tourism, ensure training, and marketing simultaneously.
As he concluded his time in Bundibugyo, Mugisha Muntu touched on the widespread issue of corruption, saying that fighting corruption becomes easy when the team leader is not corrupt. He said that when a team leader is corrupt, even if the rest of the team is not corrupt, they will eventually become corrupt.
Mugisha Muntu revealed that when a team leader is uncorrupted and has integrity, he/she will eventually select an incorruptible team to work with. Mugisha Muntu concluded by asking citizens to entrust him and the entire team of ANT with leadership for the next Uganda, free from corruption, poor services, and injustices.
