UPC Manifesto 2006

(As Published by the Monitor News Paper, December 16, 2005)
by Emmanuel Mulondo (Monitor News)

The Uganda People's Congress has promised to put in place a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to unite the country and bring about everlasting peace.

The promise is part of the foreword to the party manifesto launched last evening at Hotel Equatoria, Kampala.

"It (the party) will also take all necessary steps to end civil strife in the country and return it to the deserving peace, tranquility and prosperity. We shall immediately put in place a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring about speedy reconciliation and an everlasting peace in the country," party president Miria Kalule Obote says in the foreword to the manifesto.

Social Services

Under NRM, she says, the nation has been torn to shreds with a significant number of Ugandans under traumatic conditions, unable to access basic social services.

The foreword also promises to rationalize and redefine the role of all the security agencies including the army, police, prisons and intelligence services and to establish and implement a framework for accountability.

It says that for the last two decades the economy has benefited only a few high ranking officials in the "ethnocentric NRM government," the result being 40% of Ugandans with 65% of these in the north being below the poverty line.

Debt Burden

The party says this is on the background where the country's debt burden has risen from $1.2billion at the advent of the NRM in 1986 to $ 4.5billion today and where the country has received about $ 16billion in grants. The party says there's "no evidence to account for this level of financing."

The President's Office and the Finance, Planning and Economic Development ministry, the manifesto says, are responsible for planning policies and implementing programs in a situation where the constitutionally mandated National Planning Authority is deliberately starved of resources.

"The result is that government planning and policy formulation and evolution are at best adhoc and at worst non-existent."

The manifesto promises "evidence based planning" and prudent financial management where the planning and financial management functions will be separated.

It promises improving health by turning around the situation where there are no drugs and equipment in government hospitals and the health sector having "demoralized medical staff."

The manifesto promises to shift from the one-man (Museveni) based foreign policy to "improve Uganda's image". The party accuses NRM of having committed diplomatic blunders by befriending none credible leaders and shifting the development paradigm of the country, which hurts Uganda's interests.

It promises to improve on Universal Primary Education by addressing the teacher-pupil ratio and also address the "collapsing" agricultural sector, which is in sorry state in spite of massive "external borrowing."

It promises to revitalize the all infrastructure that the UPC built, including roads, railways and street lighting, which the party says the NRM has run down.

Key points

Creating viable democracy
Re-establishing security, law and order
Restoring economic prosperity for all.
Management of human resources.
Developing Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Industry.
Management of natural resources.
Development of infrastructure and improving Uganda's role in world affairs.

Click here to view the UPC 2006 Manifesto.