President Yoweri Museveni has warned Ugandans against a lazy and dishonest workforce saying it makes the country lack behind in development.
The President said this on Thursday at the International Labour Day celebrations in Rubaare Town Council in Ntugamo district.
“There can be no growth and economic development when you have a lazy and dishonest workforce,” said Museveni.
He added that a workforce that steals from its employer scares off investors and derails development.
The President further condemned warned the workers who steal fuel from the construction company referring to the those working on the Kampala- Katuna road.
The President singled out the theft of road fuel on the Kampala-Masaka-Kabale-Katuna road by the locals, summoning the area police commander and the RDC to explain to the public what is being done to curb the thefts.
“Who is stealing road fuel? What has been done about it. We have been working on this road and we are remaining with only 27 miles to complete it,” Museveni asked the area police commander and the RDC to explain to the public what is being done to curb the thefts.
He added that the government is working on these roads so that the country can have good infrastructure.
“We need infrastructure such as roads, electricity etc that is cheap and affordable to lower cost of doing business and attract investments,” he said.
Labour Day was celebrated under the theme; “Working with the Youth: Addressing the Employment challenge”.
Speaking on the topic of job creation, the President said government jobs are not enough to solve the issue of job creation.
He said there are only four sectors that are key in job creation including agriculture, Industry, ICT and services.
“What we need is modern agro-production. Am becoming more hopeful on the issue of industry. If you visit the exhibition stalls, you can see that Ugandans are able to process and manufacture many things,” Museveni said.
According to statistics from the Uganda National Household Survey 2012/13 youth aged between 18-30 years constitute 21.3% of the total population with only 60 percent of these engaged in fulltime employment, 15 at school, 7%in both part time employment and school and 18% jobless.
Uganda’s total working population is 12.4 million excluding the 1.6million persons engaged in agriculture for household production.
Of the working population only 18.5% are in paid employment while 81.5% are self employed.
Every year 300,000 people enter the job market with the economy only generating 18,000 formal jobs.
