Kampala, Uganda: President Yoweri Museveni’s full inauguration speech for the 2026–2031 term has placed wealth creation, industrialisation, value addition and regional integration at the centre of Uganda’s next phase under what he called a “Kisanja of No More Sleep.”
In the address delivered Tuesday, May 12, after taking oath at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds, Museveni urged Ugandans to “wake up” and fully participate in the money economy through commercial agriculture, manufacturing, ICT and services.
The President also defended the Parish Development Model (PDM), Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) and Uganda’s ban on export of unprocessed minerals, saying Africa must stop exporting jobs and wealth through raw materials.
“Uganda has peace, infrastructure, markets and government support programmes. No more excuses,” Museveni said.
BELOW IS THE FULL SPEECH BY H.E. YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI AT THE SWEARING – IN CEREMONY 2026
Your Excellencies, the visiting Heads of State, Heads of Government and Heads of Delegations; Her Excellency the Vice-President of the Republic of Uganda; All the other Leaders of Uganda; All the Wanainchi, especially the Bazzukulu.
Habari nzuri Woote? Mungu asifiwe (apoyo Rubanga, yebazibwe Katonda). Congratulations on the series of elections that we have been having ever since the 15th of January, 2026. These were: the Presidential, the Parliamentary, District Chairpersons, District Councillors, Sub-County Chairpersons and Sub-County Councillors.
I, especially, congratulate our party, the NRM, for winning all those elections with big majorities. I also congratulate the other parties such as the DP, UPC, etc., that participated in the elections without using violence unlike the Party of NUP and some few elements of FDC, that were using violence.
The parties under IPOD should clearly lay out agreed guidelines on the dos and don’ts of election management, according to the laws and the constitution of Uganda.
This Kisanja should be regarded as a Kisanja (term) of “no more sleep for all Ugandans.’’ With the advent of the NRM ever since 1986, the families that cared to listen to our message, got out of poverty.
Do you want proof? Look at the real estate in Kampala before 1986 and after.
Look at the real estate explosion around the Kampala-Entebbe area, even before you go to the other parts of Uganda.
In the last elections, I reminded you of the matafaari (emigaanda, contributions) that the NRM has put on the house of Uganda in the last 40 years. These were:
a) Peace brought about by the NRM ideology of rejecting the politics of sectarianism caused by the reliance by the opportunists on the ideology of emphasizing identity instead of emphasizing the interests of wealth creators that depend on their own sweat and develop Countries;
b) Development in the form of economic-infrastructure such as roads, electricity, the piped water, the railways, airports, telephones, etc and the social-infrastructure in the form of schools, health centres, etc.
c) the Wealth of individuals, families and companies that use the peace and the infrastructure to build that wealth in the 4 sectors of Uganda’s economy, the four sectors being; commercial agriculture, manufacturing or artisanship, services and ICT;
d) it is now the wealth of individuals, families or companies, that creates jobs, without wealth creation by the Government, individuals, families or companies, there will be no appreciable quantum of jobs;
e) then, the NRM Government has struggled to bring services to the People in the form of Law and order, justice, education, administration, health, etc. These services, help the wealth creators to do their mission of wealth creation;
f) then, the issue of Market, internal, regional, continental and inter-continental, hence, the need for economic and, in some cases, even political integration to form regional trading bodies and Federations where feasible;
g) and the Political Integration leading to the Federation of East Africa, deals with both the issue of the market for the wealth creators as well as strategic security by enabling us to defend ourselves in the four dimensions, Land Forces, Air Forces, Navy and Space.
The NRM has been telling you that there is peace, infrastructure, service delivery and the markets of Uganda, the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), on top of whatever International markets that may be open to us, although those are quite erratic.
The NRM is also providing a nucleus of cheap capital in the form of PDM (Parish Development Model), Emyooga, Uganda Development Bank (UDB) money, etc. Sometimes, we even give outright grants of coffee seedlings, fruit seedlings, breeding stock, etc., such as those given under Operation Wealth Creation (OWC).
This is where Kisanja “No more sleep” comes in. With all these matafaari (emigaanda, contributions) by the Government, you must do your part in the two areas: Wealth creation and Jobs creation.
During the campaigns, I showed you many examples on the screens. Today, I will show you only 3 because of time.
These are: Basangwa of Kamuli, Ijala of Serere and the Industrial Park of Mbale.
I have also shown you many times, the example of Nyakaana, who uses 1.3 acres to earn net Ug. Sh. 240 million per annum and he is employing 15 People.
I have reminded you that Uganda has got 40 million acres of very good arable land. If only 7 million of those acres were used the Nyakaana way, we would create 105 million jobs in small-scale commercial agriculture alone of the four acre model or less and the 7 economic activities.
This is before you talk of the big-scale commercial agriculture such as Madhvani, who employs 14,000 People at Kakira; before you talk of the manufacturers that are now employing 1,588,102 Ugandans; or before you talk of services such as hotels like Sheraton which employs 400 People.
The issue, then, is for all of you to kuva mundoolo (get out of sleep, kulambala, nino). It is a shame to see Ugandans going abroad to look for jobs; yet, as you can see, the jobs are easily available here, if you listen to our advice.
Yes, the 105 million jobs of the Nyakaana type are the low-skilled ones. These are, however, one part of the story. You go to Karuma or Isimba hydro-power dams and see how many highly qualified engineers, all Ugandans, are working there.
The four sectors, commercial agriculture, manufacturing, services and ICT, for now, have both low and high skills jobs.
In 2013, only 32% of the homesteads in Uganda were in the money economy. At Independence in 1962, only 9.4% were in the money economy. On account of the work of OWC and PDM, the homesteads in the money economy are now 67%; the other 33% that are still outside, must also join the money economy.
When all the families in Uganda join the money economy in the four sectors, there will be so many jobs that all our nearly 2million refugees from the brother Countries of Africa that are here, will get jobs and we will have to import other workers from the brother African Countries.
With more value addition for our agricultural raw-materials, our mineral raw-materials, our forest raw-materials plus our knowledge economy of automobiles, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and electronics, there will be more People in Manufacturing, Services and ICT, than in Agriculture.
This is where we need to retune our educational system to concentrate on imparting skills to learners that are needed in the labour market and scale down on random education or be clear to the learners and parents, that certain courses are just for interest and may not create jobs for the wielders of these skills.
In Uganda here, we are always talking about the importance of value addition that I have just mentioned here. With the presence of so many African brothers and sisters and friends from outside Africa, I cannot fail to point out the strategic mistakes many of the African ruling elites have been making for the last 70 years, ever since the Independence of Sudan (Khartoum) in 1955.
This is the mistake of exporting unprocessed or semi-processed raw materials of minerals, agricultural products, etc., to Foreign Countries. This is a strategic blunder.
Let us take gold as an example. If you export a kilogram of unprocessed gold (84% pure), recently, you have been getting USD 60,000. If the gold is processed to 99.90% purity, you get USD 168,000!! Look at the difference in value.
However, you do not only donate money to the outsiders per kg of gold, per kg of coffee, etc, you also donate jobs. All those refining jobs go to the outsiders. That is not all. At 84% pure, that gold cannot be used as bullion, as currency, nor can it be used as an input in the other industries such as jewellery, electronics, aerospace, etc.
That is one of the reasons Africa’s economy has remained stunted 70 years after the African Countries started regaining their freedom.
Africa is 4 times the land area of the USA and 12 times the land area of India, with a present population of 1.5 billion People that will be 2.5 billion in the next 30 years; yet our total GDP is only USD 3.6 trillion while that of the USA is USD 32 trillion, China is USD 20.65 trillion, India is USD 4.18 trillion, etc.
This hemorrhage is one of the reasons it must stop. That is why here in Uganda, we banned the export of unprocessed minerals and try to get People to add-value here for all the other raw materials that make profits.
In the African economies, we must ensure both vertical and horizontal integration. Africa’s GDP should be, at least, USD 60 trillion if not more. Our friends from outside of Africa should also help us to achieve this. If they see far, they will see that this is also in their own interest.
If you are a clever capitalist, why would you want to do business with a poor man, with small purchasing power? I regard myself as a clever capitalist. I produce milk. I want many Ugandans and many Africans to buy my milk. However, they cannot buy my milk unless they have money in their pockets.
Luckily, I am both a clever capitalist and also a Christian as well as enfura (a traditionally respected person) and a patriot and I, therefore, love God with all my heart and I love my neighbour as I love myself.
I am, therefore, working feverishly to put money in the hands of Ugandans for them to get out of poverty, improve their purchasing power and also improve their milk consumption per capita from the present 60 litres to the 210 litres recommended by WHO for the sake of the calcium for their bones and their teeth.
I also pray that the same happens in the whole of Africa and the World.
The phenomenon of Uganda having more jobs than the local labor force, is not new. The small enclave (Island) economy of the British times, the economy of the 3Cs (Coffee, Cotton and Copper) and the 3Ts (Tobacco, Tea and Tourism), could not get enough workers locally, although it was only covering 9.4 % of the homesteads.
That is how our brothers from Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, etc, came. You listen to our message and wake up (kuzukuka), given the raw-materials base of Uganda, the present population of Uganda of 48 million People, will not be enough to manage a developed Uganda.
In small-scale agriculture, in order to support PDM with zero-grazing chicken, pigs, goats, turkeys, sheep, cattle, etc., we must solve the problem of water up to the household level or up to, at least, the village where one can use a wheelbarrow to bring the water to the zero-grazing area.
The current Woman MP for Ntungamo, Hon. Joselyn Kamateneti, has developed an interesting model that uses solar-powered water pumps and wells (amaziba, oluzzi) in the areas of Uganda that have enshuro (spring). She uses Sh. 8.1 million for a village. The households can, then, use wheelbarrows.
How can this model be adapted to the bore-holes for the areas with no enshuro?
With fish-farming in the miiga (edges) of the wetlands, the Government will help the communities with the earth moving equipment to make the fish ponds, the solar-powered water pump to pump the water and aerate it with oxygen and protect the fish against snakes and frogs.
The issue of fish fries (Obwana bw’ebyenyanja) and fish feeds, is also being addressed.
The support for all the other sectors, big commercial farmers, manufacturing and artisanship, Services and ICT, are contained in the Government’s Fourth National Development Plan (NDP-IV).
No more excuses. These programmes are not in other Countries. They are here in Uganda, in every parish, every constituency, in UDB.
If anybody is diverting the money, you, since 1986, are empowered to deal with him or her because of the democratic Local Councils where you are the ones who elect the leaders.
Join the Parish SACCOs and directly participate in the management of that SACCO. If the money is not enough, tell your MPs to work with me in Kampala to concentrate more money in PDM instead of okumemeerera (scattering) the money in many other programmes.
Especially for Agriculture, you need to protect our environment. We need our wetlands for both our rain and irrigation. We need our forests for the rain and protecting the catchment areas of our River systems, the Elgon, the Rwenzori, the Mabira systems, the Sezibwa-Lwajali systems, the Mayanja-Kafu-Lugogo systems and the River Kagyera systems.
All the rice growing and potatoes growing in the swamps, must stop, and where the terrain allows, we replace rice growing with fish-farming at the edge of the swamp which is more profitable.
Then, the wetlands come back for irrigation, indigenous medicine and rain formation. Then we come to the restoration of the natural forests which guarantee for us the availability of the indigenous medicines, genetic materials, protecting the catchment area of the rivers and rain-formation.
I thank the brothers and sisters from Africa and the friends from outside Africa that joined us on this occasion. You are most welcome.
God Bless Africa. God bless Uganda. Let there be Peace and Justice in the World.
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA.
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