The President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni has blasted the Ministry Of Health after revealing that among the 679 cases of Covid19 in Uganda, there are some who were given fake positive results “due to carelessness” of some technicians
The president announced the shocking news during a Thursday June, 11, 2020 national budget reading. He however, didn’t mention the exact number of erroneous cases but asked health minister Dr. Ruth Aceng to clarify whether the said cases are part of the 679 number or not.
The President added that the Ministry of health will clarify on the same as soon as possible and warned Ugandans to exercise caution against the deadly COVID-19.
“We are winning this war if only everybody listens,” he said on Thursday June 11, 2020, during the national budget.
Giving an update on Uganda’s coronavirus statistics, he said that as of June 10, Uganda’s positive cases total 679.
The president further decried low tax collections in Uganda, which he said are very low compared to other countries in the region.
“Uganda has the lowest tax to GDP ratio. It’s 14.3% . Some African countries go up to 18-20%. In Europe up to 40%. So what’s the problem? There’s been a lot of corruption at URA,” Museveni said, in his remarks after Minister Matia Kasaija and presented his 2020-2021 budget estimates.
Museveni said there were many opportunities to raise revenue in the country, citing rentals as an example.
“About rentals; this is cheating; someone who has over 40 units and is claiming that he is building new ones. We are saying that pay tax for the houses. That is why we have very low tax collection.,” he said
Museveni explained that the country is paying a lot of money in interest because government is borrowing, which can be halted if more tax is collected.
“There is a lot of collusion and people who are not paying taxes. This is corruption. There has been a lot of corruption in the URA but I have thoroughly cleaned it. We have dispersed the URA crowd. We shall clean all other institutions that have corrupt people.”
President Museveni maintained that Uganda is “stable and nothing can disturb us here” and that “no-one can disturb our peace here”.
He urged his regional counterparts to work together to emsure that peace is maintained across the region.
Museveni said that while some people have voiced pessimism over the economy, he is optimistic – despite the coronavirus crisis throwing the spanner in the works of such sectors as tourism.
He said that the emergence of COVID-19 has awakened the Government’s desire to support domestic production.
“We are going to be very strict on import substitution,” he said adding that he is glad that minister Kasaija talked of increasing taxes on imports. “We are also going to promote export promotion.”
