In the last Presidential and Parliamentary elections, the National Resistance Movement Party did not perform well in Buganda (Central) Region. According to the 2021 Presidential Elections results, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni scored 35.9% of the votes in Buganda Region. Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu the National Unity Platform candidate took the day. Relatedly the NRM party lost majority of the parliamentary seats to NUP. It is just a handful of NRM leaning candidates that made through to parliament.
The NRM party and the NRM government did not take the loss in Buganda region lightly for obvious reasons. Historically the region has always voted the NRM party and hence NRM considers the Buganda voting block a prize to the party. The party had to take a step back and analyse their loss and lay strategies for a full comeback in the coming elections. We are already seeing the outcomes from these strategy sessions.
Parish Development Model (PDM): By the close of this financial year, Buganda region would have received UGX710bn through the PDM. This amount is four times bigger than the total capitalization of Post Bank (Pearl Bank). The main purpose of PDM is to fight poverty and elevate many people into the money economy. Pumping such huge sums of money in one region is not a mistake, it is by design. The NRM party listened to the feedback from the people and acted accordingly. PDM total disbursements across the country stand at UGX 3.2tn impacting lives of over 2.4m households.
Industrial Parks: Out of the seven or so industrial parks that have been set up and are operational, two are in Buganda namely: Namanve Industrial Park and Kapeeka Industrial Park. These are in addition to the already existing industrial parks in Buganda like Industrial Area in Kampala among others. Majority of the workforce come from Buganda (Central) region. More projects of this nature are still in the pipeline and will be rolled out in the next Kisanja.
In order to feed the industries and to encourage the growth of more cottage industries, the NRM government has set up Zonal Industrial Skilling Hubs (also known as Presidential Industrial Skilling Hubs). Out of the 20 operating skilling hubs, the Central Region has four and a number of youth have been graduated through these skilling centres and have been able to turn their lives around. These graduates have formed SACCOs and government is going to inject funds so that they can get capital to start their own businesses.
Other initiatives like Emyooga, GROW project from Private Sector Foundation, favourable loans and grants from institutions like Microfinance Support Centre, Uganda Development Bank among others have been launched in Buganda and have had a trickledown effect on the people.
In Agriculture, Uganda today is the leading producer of high-quality coffee in Africa over taking Ethiopia that has enjoyed this position for decades. Most of the coffee that is exported has been grown in Buganda and the last five years have seen bumper harvests and good coffee prices hence the farmers having smiling pockets. Efforts to encourage the people in the central region to embrace coffee farming (4 acre model) are still ongoing through institutions like Operation Wealth Creation, National Agricultural Research Organisation among others.
In other sectors like education, health, services, and security a lot has also been done in the last five years. Number of seed secondary schools have been constructed and additional classrooms in both primary and secondary schools have been renovated. There has been a number of Health Centre upgrades, renovations and construction that has taken place( Kayunga Hospital is one of those). Technology infrastructure has greatly improved within Buganda Region. Many areas now have telephone and internet services. At the start of this Kisanja we are about to conclude we had some insecurity incidents in areas of greater Masaka and these were decisively dealt. One can comfortably say the central region has been generally peaceful.
However, it is not all glittering in the region. There are critical areas that still require urgent government attention like roads. However, given the size of the government wallet all could not be done in one go. However, in some areas work has been started for instance the Masaka – Kyotera – Mutukula road (our gateway to Tanzania and Dar es Salam port) is under construction, Kisibi – Nakawuka – Kasanje, Nakawuka – Natete among others are also under construction. The NRM manifesto pledges to focus more on infrastructure development in the next term as it is part of the Vision 2040 program. Buganda region is slated to benefit more.
It is therefore unlikely that we shall see a repeat of what happened in 2021. The NRM party/government strategy is yielding great results. The people have realised that they made mistakes in the previous elections and many of the leaders they voted into positions have done more talking and fighting government programs than raising the issues affecting the people in the right fora. As they look forward to what the NRM government has in stock for them in the next Kisanja, they want to protect the gains they have so far received by changing the status quo i.e. Vote for President Yoweri Museveni and other NRM flag bearers. It is the Museveni for Buganda campaign.