The Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection is pushing for a referendum on the equal distribution of oil revenues to stem poverty and accelerate household income among Ugandans. The call was made during a one-day dialogue by the Social Protection Community of practice-Uganda Chapter, at Kampala Hotel Africana on Wednesday.
Prof. Ezra Suruma, the keynote speaker at the dialogue, labored to highlight the example of Norway and Alaska State in the US, where oil revenues are equally distributed to benefit the population after the people decided through a referendum.
He said in Alaska, the oil revenues are distributed to benefit the population on an annual basis and that in Norway, the oil revenues are channeled to benefit pensioners.
He said poverty is the root cause of corruption as people fight for a limited resource envelope with a wide margin of income inequality in Ugandan society.
“That’s why we should look for an immediate solution to distribute Uganda’s oil revenue to the population to emancipate our people from poverty caused by unemployment, old age and natural disasters even if it means carrying out a referendum,”he said.
He said all Ugandans are entitled to social protection and that income inequality is the number one cause of poverty and corruption among public and private entities.
Paul Onapa, Deputy Head, Expanding Social Protection Programme in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, said up to 50 per cent of children in Uganda do not complete Primary School, yet Government registers high enrolment at the beginning of each year through the Universal Primary Education Programme (UPE). He attributed this to household poverty, where children are diverted from attending school to getting involved in informal business and other labor exploitation tasks to cater for their household needs.
He said 56 percent of Ugandans live in poverty, 9 percent are unemployed and only 2 percent can afford Health Insurance, according to sources from Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS).
The Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection Coordinator, Gloria Nakajubi, said social protection is a network of different players, where they support the population to understand best practices.
“We facilitate ideas and problem solving on social protection by looking at both state and non-state actors,” she said.
She said the Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection shall be holding similar dialogue meetings once every two months.
The meeting was attended by Legislatures on the Forum for Social Protection, representatives from Civil Society Organizations, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the Academia among others.
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