Will against property fragmentation before you die, says Museveni
President Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni (C0 gesture after they arrived in Kiruhura District on March 8 ahead of Women's Day celebrations. PHOTO/HANDOUT
What you need to know:
- President Museveni says persistent land fragmentation dragging parts of Uganda back into poverty.
- Mr Museveni also urged Ugandans to capitalize on Uganda's growing dairy sector.
- Further, he noted that the value of the Ankole long horned cattle breed is "going up.
President Museveni on Wednesday rallied Ugandans to clearly will over their estates before they die as he repeatedly expressed his dislike for property fragmentation when one dies.
Much of the societies in Uganda operate under a traditional system under which assets are usually apportioned for allocation to inheritors, often triggering deadly family clashes.
“Don’t wait to die then stir chaos and conflicts over your property. That’s paganism. When you continue fragmenting land, you cause poverty. Stop fragmenting wealth,” Mr Museveni noted.
Mr Museveni made the call even louder when he held that persistent property fragmentation, including among elites, threatens to be the greatest undoing of socio-economic progress especially in Ankole Region over the last 40 years.
“When family heads die, the relatives descend on the wealth and divide it. It is criminal. This is a new danger,” he said, adding that “the whole of society must come out of this backwardness.”
Mr Museveni, who was leading Women’s Day celebrations in the cattle corridor district of Kiruhura in Western Uganda, called upon authorities to “be visionary in their leadership approaches.”
“All leaders should know that the new war is now to educate these ignorant people not to divide property physically. Why don’t you keep the property together and use the modern method of shares whereby you share profits from the property,” he remarked.
Mr Museveni has since June 2022 gone out all to encourage masses into modern farming to tame official government figures that show over 8.13 million Ugandans are poor with another 16.99 million poor-non-poor.
“When the families get out of poverty, it is easier to address all the other marginalized groups including the women,” he observed.
‘Produce more milk’
Uganda, with a population of over 44million people, produces 7.2billion litres of milk per year with the East African nation’s dairy sector valued at over Shs3.8trillion- annually.
“Our population will soon reach 50 million people. For each person to remain healthy with all his teeth like me at 78 years, you will need to drink 210litres of milk per year. Therefore, the country will need 10.5 million litres of milk,” Mr Museveni said.
Mr Museveni urged masses to embrace extensive agriculture to generate more raw materials.
“Agriculture Stimulates industrialization. What is true of milk, is true of tea. Therefore, all Ugandans must stop excuses. It is possible to get out of poverty,” he emphasized.
‘Ankole cattle value going up’
President Museveni March 8 revealed that his South African counterpart had auctioned an Ankole long horned cattle (bull) at a price more than 100 times higher than on the local market, indicating that the value of the breed is increasing.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa auctioned one of the 43 Ankole cattle I sold to him at Shs337million.”
“We even heard that of the Ankole cattle which Americans took from Uganda for tests on tsetse flies. The value of the Ankole long-horned cattle is going up,” Mr Museveni told a gathering at the March 8 event in Kiruhura.
