Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has donated 1.2billion Shillings to ghetto SACCOs in Kampala Metropolitan Area. Museveni announced on Wednesday while meeting ghetto leaders at State House Entebbe.
The group included 100 ghetto youth leaders who are also the leaders of the 12 ghetto SACCOs in Kampala, Wakiso, and Mukono. The beneficiaries of the SACCOs are from; Rubaga Kakeeka Zone dwellers, Kasangati Ghetto Community, Kampala Central Division, Nakawa Division, Makindye East, Kawempe South, Makindye West, Kawempe North, Mukono Industrial, Kasokoso, Nansana division and Masajja Para Zone ghetto in Makindye.
Each of the 12 ghettos was given 100 million Shillings in fulfillment of the pledge Museveni made during a meeting with the ghetto at Kololo Independence Grounds last year. “From the Shs100 million you can do something for yourselves. In the villages, we’re encouraging people into commercial farming. It’s good that you have a base here in the town where you have small businesses, artisanship, services like salons, and others. Those are areas you should participate in within your groups,” Museveni said.
During the meeting, the President underscored the role of the ghetto people in the liberation of Uganda. “What you call ghetto people, in the 1950s used to be called “Abawejere” and they were centered around Katwe. When Uganda was fighting for Independence, much of the activities were around Katwe and I think the first offices of the Uganda National Congress were located in Katwe and that is where I think Dr. I.K Musaazi Dr Barnabas Kunuka and others operated from. Even Augustino Kamya who organised the boycott of Indian goods in 1958 was from Katwe,” the Museveni said.
He added “I linked up with the ghetto in 1968. I was there, Katwe is my place. I was not a ghetto boy myself; my background was in the villages with farmers. That is where I came from to go to university, but we wanted to link up with the “Bawejere”. The head of the abawejere at that time was Abbas Kibazo whom they used to call “Ssabawejere” so I linked up with them. So, this story of saying this is my first time to link up with the ghetto is not true,” Museveni added.
Museveni explained that when former President Idi Amin announced his coup on the 25th January 1971, the former students together with the help of the Abawejere decided to fight him because they believed in solving the problems of the people. “We had and still have a program of the prosperity of the people and Idi Amin could not understand that. Of course, we had problems with Obote, but we were at least able to talk to him. That is why we had not taken the route of fighting. On the 27th of January 1971, I left to fight Amin, so he ruled me for only 2 days. I left with two people from Kampala; Abbas Kibazo and Zubair Bakari and when we went to Mbarara, the people there added some other two chiefs. The five of us entered Tanzania where we met Mwalimu Nyerere and that’s how the fight against Idi Amin started. All the time when we were fighting Idi Amin, I used to come to Kampala and my contacts were mainly these bawejere,” Museveni said.
The President further assured the ghetto youths that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government is pro-people emphasizes politics of interest and works for all Ugandans. The President also rallied the ghetto youths to hold their leaders accountable and demand what was meant for them.
According to the President, the problem of the ghetto people started when the educated people (elite) failed to deal with the uneducated although also the uneducated have had their weaknesses like the failure to hold their elected leaders accountable. He said on top of the government workers like the chiefs who existed during the time of the British, when the NRM government came to power, they decided to add on leaders elected by the people from Local Council 1 up to LC5 including a woman member of parliament for each district to fill the gap in case the government chiefs failed to perform their roles.
“When we were preparing, I said, you people, to defend the people, we must add another structure, these should be elected by the people themselves so that the people’s delegates are there to monitor and hold the government accountable. That is why we created the LCs and MPs to be elected by you people. As people who have power in your hands, why do you go on to elect useless people?” he wondered.
President Museveni tasked the ghetto youths to advocate for the interests of the masses like free education for all and prosperity for all as well as embracing government poverty alleviation like the Paris Development Model (PDM) to uplift their livelihoods. “It’s good now that we have the group of Ddamulira which has linked up with you again, then we will be able to guide you on how to defend the interests of the masses. This is your country and home, you should defend it, you shouldn’t get involved in criminality like illegal protests,” Museveni said.
The Minister of Kampala Capital City and Metropolitan Affairs, Hajjat Minsa Kabanda thanked Museveni for the support towards the ghetto people. “These people have been trained on how to manage their SACCOs and we are very sure that most of them are now transformed. Those who are yet to transform will also be transformed,” Kabanda said.
The Director of Crime Intelligence and project coordinator, Brig Gen. Christopher Ddamulira said the ghetto project in March 2022 and he has been working on it with his team under the leadership of Minister Kabanda and the State House Comptroller Jane Barekye. “Previously, these ghetto youth did not have leadership but one thing which we did was to create leadership from the youth themselves, so we conducted elections through which we got leaders at zone, parish and division level,” Ddamulira said.
Ddamulira further noted that the intervention has started yielding fruits by tremendously reducing criminality in Kampala, Wakiso, and Mukono. “Even if you look at the Police report that we issue every year, the last report indicated that the crime level has gone down but also in political violence, these are the people that the politicians have always used to confuse Kampala because they felt they didn’t have a stake in what’s happening in the country. All those crimes have been reduced. Even recently during the planned march to Parliament, we didn’t register a singer ghetto youth getting involved in those things,” Ddamulira said.
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