MUBS Guild President HE. Moses Amanya was among the youth leaders who met the President at State house Entebbe on Saturday October 5, 2024. In their meeting President Yoweri Museveni warned the youth leaders against waiting for government jobs and advised them to shift their focus from government jobs to wealth creation as a solution to the rising unemployment. The Youth leaders used this opportunity to ask the President to increase the funds allocated to the students Loan scheme.

President Museveni emphasized that the young people should not be stuck to the idea that the government should provide them with jobs, saying such a position is not right since the government has limited jobs in the public service. “Where do the jobs come from?” Being stuck on the idea that the government must give you a job is not a correct position because how can the government have jobs to employ all these Ugandans? The government jobs are all known; to be 470,000 jobs in Public Service,” President explained.

He gave the youth an example of a farmer, Nyakana in Fort Portal who used one acre of land to do dairy and poultry farming. He said Nyakana produces 120 trays of eggs per day and about 20 litres of milk and he employs about 15 people. I calculated at one time that if we had people using 7 million acres of land like Nyakana, each one employing 15 people, we would have 105 million jobs. So the issue is not jobs, the issue is just confusion,”

President Museveni also urged the youth to differentiate between development and wealth creation. “You hear people talking about development. Development like the roads, electricity, piped water, schools, health centers, belongs to everybody. But what comes to your house is wealth not development. Development can be here or not but you can still have wealth.

The President further explained that, “when there is service provision like security in the country, the next important thing is wealth creation in your home. If you have got wealth, even if there are problems in service provision, you can help yourself. If there is no power in my area, I can have solar power. If there is no piped water, I can harvest water from the roof of my nice house. That is what I did in Rwakitura.”

The President assured and informed the youth that Uganda is moving forward despite a few challenges like corruption. He encouraged them to insist on the fair share of the government poverty alleviation programs like the Parish Development Model (PDM). “We also have
the Innovation Fund for you, the educated people under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.”

The President further informed the youth that government saved their lives when they were stopped from demonstrating during the planned march to Parliament protest. He explained that some opposition bad elements who work for the foreign interests were planning to cause harm on the protesters and then blame it on the government. “We could not allow that to happen,” he assured them.

The National Youth Council (NYC) Chairperson, Mr. Jacob Eyeru assured the President of their readiness to join him in the fight against corruption. He however asked the President to help them re-institute the Youth Council budget so that they are able to run their operations smoothly. “Your Excellency, you directed that they reinstate the budget of the Youth Council, but it has not been done and we cannot afford the salaries of the Secretariat. Your Excellency, we pray that you help us with that because we cannot operate in the second quarter.”

And the President of the Uganda National Students Association (UNSA), Mr. Okot Francis said students are affected by the rampant corruption in the country and they are currently running a campaign among the students to create awareness about the adverse effects of corruption. He also requested President Museveni to increase the funds allocated to the Student Loan Scheme in order to help the vulnerable students realize their dreams as far as academics are concerned.

The Guild President, Kyambogo University Mr. Reagan Mwebesa, who represented fellow Guild Presidents, informed the President that students in Public Universities have limited-service delivery, which he attributed to quarterly release instead of semester release.