President Yoweri
Museveni has stated that poor planning has partly hindered the development of
the key economic sectors in Uganda.
The President made the
revelation while commissioning facilities at Uganda Petroleum Institute -
Kigumba (UPIK) today Saturday January 14,
2023.
“I want to congratulate
the Ministry of Education, Maama Janet and other people who have been involved
in implementing this project. I also want to thank the World Bank for the
support they provided. However, I really want to tell
you that the problem here is bad planning by the overall Government structure
because this money that we are talking about, the USD32 million which has
been invested is not such a big amount of money given the importance of Kigumba
Petroleum Institute,” President Museveni said.
He said Government
should plan well and prioritise investing in lucrative projects that will
generate billions of dollars for the country in a few years to come.
“The question is how
many oil projects do you have? We have only one in Mwitanzige (Lake Albert)
Valley. It's the project we have that will give us billions of dollars in a few
years’ time and it needs support of training which we planned that should be
provided by Kigumba Institute,” the President urged.
“Why do we have a
problem in funding it fully? I don't see any problem with that. It's not lack of
money but lack of planning by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and
Economic Development as well as poor oversight and all that. How could you fail
to plan to spend money in order to get more money in fairly a short time?” he
also wondered.
Gen. Museveni further
told politicians and officials in Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to stop wasting public funds on external travels and
channel the money on developmental projects that would economically transform
the country.
“Your ancestors had the
technology where they got a small quantity of sour milk then add it in a gourd
full of fresh milk and within a few hours, all of it would be sour. So really
this is a concept of planning. We need a small “sour milk” to get all this big
resource turned into money in our pockets,” he stated.
“Therefore, even
if we are to spend USD 50 million, 60 or even USD100 million to make
Kigumba Petroleum Institute a world class training centre, we shall do
it. We have the money. Yes we have got very many needs, some want money
to eat. We can constrain that. We can say stop travelling. Tell the civil
servants, the MPs, the politicians to stop travelling abroad; money is being
wasted in external travel and here Kigumba is crying for money!
President Museveni also
disclosed that it was Uganda under the NRM Government that started the
initiative of training people in petroleum in the whole of Africa.
“The people we sent
abroad to train in petroleum are the ones who discovered oil here. They came
and showed me on the computer. That is how they started now to look for these
companies because we didn't have the money to dig but already, we knew the
location of the oil,” he said.
“If you have that
history of pioneering, let's also pioneer in this Education here by having a
world class petroleum training centre and later alone you can have other
aspects of energy like the solar, biogas. We can add them later. So, please let us get the full plan. We shall
support it because it is unique. You cannot compare it with external travel,
allowances inside Uganda. We can freeze all that and have this, like we have
done for other things.”
The First Lady also
Minister of Education and Sports, Mrs. Janet Museveni, applauded President Museveni for his
continued advocacy and support in skilling Ugandans, which is key in employment
and wealth creation.
“As part of your wider
vision to improve human resource capacity to steer socio-economic development
and Uganda's transformation agenda, in 2012 you launched a 10-year
Skilling Uganda Strategic Plan. The plan articulated clearly the direction a
country should take to skill its people and unlock their potential for
productivity. Since then, the Ministry of Education and Sports has been
implementing various projects towards the achievement of that goal and
interventions within these projects have led to improved infrastructure,
systems and processes in the delivery of technical and vocational education
training in this country,” Mrs. Museveni noted.
“As a result, we are
witnessing increasing enrollment, changing attitude and more visibility of the
skilling sub-sector. You have personally initiated several skilling initiatives
and many Ugandans have benefited,” she added.
The Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Education and Sports, Ms. Kate Lamaro, said the commissioned facilities were very
significant to Government's journey of transforming skills development in the
country.
“UPIK is earmarked to be
transformed into a Centre of Excellence for oil and gas related training. This
is in line with the Skilling Uganda strategy and plan which strongly advocates
for building centres of excellence to supply manpower for specific economic
sectors,” Mrs. Lamaro said.
The Permanent Secretary
also revealed that the total cost of the project is over Shs57 billion.
“I want to also take
this opportunity Your Excellency to thank the World Bank for not only extending
financial support towards this project but also for the continuous guidance
that they provided to ensure that this project succeeds.”
Kiryandongo LCV
Chairperson, Mrs. Edith Aliguma Adyeri, lauded President Museveni and the Government of
Uganda for promoting education and skilling in Bunyoro sub region.
“Thank you for providing
opportunities to Bunyoro through vocational institutions like UPIK, Kiryandongo
Technical Institute and Bunyoro Zonal Industrial Hub among others. When our
children are skilled, they will get jobs that in turn will improve their
livelihoods,” Mrs. Aliguma said.
The Principal of UPIK,
Mr. Bernard Ongodia, also commended
President Museveni for his visionary leadership that led to the setup of the
institution.
“UPIK came into
existence due to your visionary leadership when you issued a directive in 2009
to start the institution with a goal of training Ugandans and create adequate
manpower at both artisanal and technical levels which makes the highest number
of direct and indirect jobs in the oil and gas sector,” Mr. Ongodia said.
“This was a very
strategic decision that you took, and we are very grateful. Without UPIK,
it was going to be very difficult to operationalise some of the provisions in
the local content framework on the oil and gas sector in the country,” he
added.
Mr. Ongodia also
appreciated Maama Janet and the Ministry of Education and Sports who intervened
when the project was not making significant progress.
“Since then, we have experienced a commendable pace for
the project implementation and now we are here celebrating,” he said.
Located in Kiryandongo
District, Kigumba Petroleum Institute, also referred to as Uganda
Petroleum Institute or as Uganda Petroleum Institute, Kigumba, is a
Government-owned, national center for training, research and consultancy in the
field of petroleum exploration, recovery, refinement and responsible
utilisation in Uganda.
The event was also
attended by State Minister for Bunyoro Affairs, Hon. Jenipher Kacha Namuyangu,
Kibanda South MP, Hon. Karubanga Jacob
Ateenyi and World Bank officials among others.
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