STATE HOUSE, ENTEBBE: President Yoweri Museveni has said the main problem of Africa is really social backwardness where people are still using muscle power for the hoe, they carry children on their back etc everything is manual, manual, manual.
The President said that Society is always moving forward and about 600 years ago Europe which was also like us had started shifting from muscle power (using the hoe, the axe, or sometimes using animal muscle) to using machines, what the Europeans call the first industrial revolution. The second revolution was electricity and the third one automation and they are now entering the fourth one, artificial intelligence.
“That technological gap is the big problem for our people here,” he said.
The President, accompanied by the First Lady Janet Kataaha Museveni were today hosting the Liberian Vice President Dr. Jewel Howard-Taylor at State House Entebbe. Taylor, who is accompanied by her Chief of Staff George Nimely is in Uganda on a working visit.
“Of course, here in Uganda, it is easy for people to survive, except COVID-19 is the one which is killing them now. Otherwise people can stay and eat from relatives because Uganda is so rich [with] a lot of natural resources, a lot of water…they don’t work; so they were not working except the British forced them by beating them with the whip but without the whip they don’t work but for us we are using sensitization,” he said.
The President said the big structural problem of society was…people knew how to work for food culturally but the issue of money was not very strong.
“Even by 2014, as you will read in my documents, 68% of the homesteads were still working only for the stomachs-only for eating. But we tell them: if you only work for the stomach and you don’t work for the pocket, how will you build a better house, how will you buy a car, how will you support education for your children because they are non-food needs? This has been our battle,” he said.
The President said if leaders are clear about the socio-economic transformation of their societies they can change.
The President said Liberia has got huge deposits of iron ore that they can exploit and supply to Africa.
“You have got, I think, 4 billion tonnes of iron ore. So you should be supplying the whole of Africa. I told Sirleaf (Former President) that why don’t you build a steel industry for the whole of Africa? Here we have got only I think 500 million tonnes, but we are building a steel industry. You should struggle very hard and build a steel industry. Apart from rubber, you (Liberians) also have iron ore,” he said.
The President said when iron ore is exported unprocessed economies are cheated.
“They are cheating you. Ugandans wanted to export iron ore; I stopped them. They were going to pay the Indians 47$ per ton and then they take the iron ore to India and turn it into steel. Our iron ore here is very good. It is 70% pure. So when you take a ton of iron ore, you get 700kg out of it but they were going to pay them 47$ per ton and when they (the Indians) transform it for them they get 550$. I said over my dead body. This will not happen when I am here. I stopped it but it is not just the money; it’s the jobs because when the iron ore goes to India the people who will be working in the factories will not be the Americo-Liberians. You are donating money but also donating jobs,” he said.
H.E Dr. Jewel Howard-Taylor thanked the President and the First lady for the warm welcome and said they have had a very interesting trip. She said after years of crisis Liberia is coming along despite some challenges.
“Its work in progress after 30 years of crisis, its rebuilding. We have to give appreciation to H.E Sirleaf for putting the framework back in place. There are many business opportunities. I have talked to the Ministry of Trade here about some of the opportunities,” he said.
Jewel, a strong champion of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area
AfCFTA is in the country to explore possible areas of cooperation in trade, industrialization and infrastructure development is also pushing to have Uganda Airlines fly to Liberia.
“We hope one day, sooner than later, they (Ugandan Airlines) will have some trips to Monrovia. Even if it is once in a week, we would love that because now you go from Monrovia to Accra and from Accra to Nairobi and from Nairobi to Uganda so it takes almost 24 hours to get from one short distance that could probably be five hours of such a trip. So we are hoping that that will help us better link people to people. Free trade is about people working together to build a better sustaining Africa. We need an easier way to get back and forth. So I want to make that as my first request if it is possible to begin thinking about it,” she said, adding that the two countries can discuss how the airline can open up people to people, interlink commerce and trade faster than anything else because there is so much we can learn from you (Uganda).
“Our fathers have given us liberty; we are now free but we must get economic independence and the only way to do that is to build the industries with the resources that God has given us,” she said.
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