THE DEPRECIATION OF THE CURRENCY BY NRM HAS GREATLY CONTRIBUTED TO INCREASED POVERTY IN UGANDA

So much has to be done to see the people of Uganda better educated. That way they would put the Government to task to explain where the people who are buying land at any offer price get the money. Poverty is increasing and some people who would suffer similar shocks after paying taxes for business don't seem to feel anything. There are a number of wrongs in Uganda, and unfortunately, the established systems have not been able to put these out. Either some people are simply stealing would be tax money are they get payments to finance these developments, and at the end of the day are the 'heros' because they are monies people and can buy anything. Government must come out clearly and indicate the source of the money for those who under the existing circumstances are as if in a booming economy and able to buy land and carry on big investments when many people are having hardships. Common sense dictates that after the NRM made the Uganda shilling useless when they financed a lot of expenditures with fake money prior to 2011 general Elections, the final position was to make people poorer. William Kituuka Kiwanuka 80% UGANDANS ARE POORER - NEW POLL By CHARLES MWANGUHYA MPAGI Posted Thursday, May 24 2012 at 00:00 In Summary By order of importance, they say govt has done little to improve roads, education and lower commodity prices. Kampala With barely three weeks to Budget Day, the government will have to walk a tight rope as it prepares to propose further cuts in government spending while hunting hard for extra shillings from a tax-fatigued public, results of a new opinion polls suggest. Confidence in the overall health of the economy has also declined with the same poll indicating that 65 per cent of respondents expressed a negative opinion compared to 35 who believe it has gotten better over the last one year. Less than two out of every ten Ugandans believe their personal economic situation has improved over the last year while eight in ten believe it has become worse. These findings are contained in report compiled by Research World International (RWI) which conducted a survey of 1,300 Ugandans between April and March to understand public opinion on the social, political and economic direction of Uganda since the 2011 elections. The views on the economy mirror those of the Afrobarometer Round 5 survey, conducted between December 2011 to February 2012, whose results, released in March found that seven out of every ten Ugandans believed the country was headed in the wrong direction. Responding to the question: “Are you better off economically as a person after the 2011 elections?” 81 per cent of the respondents said they were not while 16 per cent said they were. Three per cent did not volunteer a response to the question. Asked: “Since the elections, is Uganda better generally?” 65 per cent said no, while 30 per cent said they believed it was better off. Share This Story 16Share By order of importance, poor road infrastructure, education, escalating commodity prices, corruption and general inflation were ranked as the most pressing problems. The pollster says three different inquiries returned the same answer though on the second and third asking, respondents raise price and inflation more significantly to the most pressing and second most pressing problem, respectively. Official figures on the performance of the economy are yet to be released but economists’ projections paint an unflattering picture. What is clear is that with inflation at one time hitting 30 per cent, the highest in over two decades where food and fuel led the upsurge, a scale down in construction and major infrastructural works that drive the economy, growth contracted by more than two per cent, economists, some within government but preferred to speak off the record, said. While the economy grew at 6.7 per cent in 2010/2011, it shrunk nearly three per cent in 2011/2012 posting a 4 per cent growth rate, figures obtained independently reveal. Ms Rachel Sebudde, a senior economist at the World Bank, said, “that is a real slowdown given that the country was growing at an average 7 per cent (over the years).” She attributed the slowdown to external and domestic factors. Struggling Western economies, some of whom are major donors to Uganda and sources of much of the foreign exchange either through remittances from Ugandans abroad and tourist dollars, top government’s worry list of external factors. While respondents did not assign responsibility for the economic woes many find themselves in, it reinforces findings of the Afrobarometer survey which established that the effects of a difficult year economically run deep among many Ugandans. In the Afrobarometer findings, Ugandans blamed reckless and wasteful spending by government and its failure to create jobs for the poor performance of the economy. While sugar has significantly come down over the past few months, several other commodities and essentials like fuel remain expensive while individual incomes, especially for salary earners, remain static. “Regarding the economy, 64.6 per cent of respondents said the economy was performing poorly while 81 per cent said they felt worse off than before elections,” notes RWI. “This sentiments are understandable given the fact that a few months after the elections, the economy went haywire, with most prices of consumer goods shooting through the roof,” RWI further states. The poll reveals that while Ugandans might acknowledge their poverty, their most pressing concerns are for government to fix means for them to fight a way out of poverty. cmwanguhya@ug.nationmedia.com