President Museveni on Monday vowed that Uganda’s economy would accelerate into double-digit growth this year, linking the surge to the country’s oil production and efforts to fully integrate Ugandans into the money economy.
‘We’re going to grow even more. This year, your oil will start flowing. The people who don’t care about Africa wanted to grab this oil for others. So, the economy is moving very fast and we’re growing at 7%. With the oil, we’re going to go into double digits,’ Museveni said, speaking at celebrations marking 40 years of National Resistance Movement (NRM) rule.
Uganda’s economy has expanded nearly fifteenfold since Museveni’s 1986 power grab, growing from just under $4 billion to around $60.4 billion by the end of 2025, according to government data.
Speaking in his first major public appearance in Kampala since the January 15 general election, the president traced Uganda’s economic journey in five phases: post-conflict recovery, expansion of the small colonial-era economy, diversification, value addition to raw materials, and a knowledge-based economy, exemplified by domestic production of automobiles and electric vehicles.
‘Somebody told me that when you go to the supermarkets now, 65 percent of the things sold there are now made in Uganda. Previously, 100 percent was imported,’ he said, emphasizing the growth of local industries.
Museveni reiterated that commercial agriculture, manufacturing and artisanship, services, and ICT were the four core sectors to drive the economy over his next five-year term.
He also linked economic expansion to improvements in infrastructure, health, education, and markets beyond Uganda’s soil.
‘The next issue is the markets. That’s why we want EAC Federation/intergratioon. The internal market is not enough,’ Museveni remarked.
Museveni also cited Uganda’s positive balance of payments, noting that by October 2025 the country had $2.37 billion in reserves, indicating that the economy was beginning to outperform imports.
‘Where we are now, we’re already moving well and we’re just beginning. The money entering Uganda is more than what we spend to import. We’re going to do much more than that,’ he observed.
Who goes to jail over PDM?
Despite sustained economic growth, Museveni acknowledged that about 30 percent of Ugandans remain outside the money economy.
But he again cast the Parish Development Model (PDM), a government-led poverty alleviation programme launched five years ago, as the main vehicle for bringing them into formal economic activity.
PDM, which channels a minimum of Shs1 million in revolving funds to households, has however faced mismanagement in some areas.
Museveni warned that officials who divert the money for personal gain would face jail, ordering the dissolution of parish committees implicated in misuse.
‘We have already arrested the one of Buwambo. even in Maracha and Iganga districts. All those who were giving PDM funds to themselves, that’s a mistake. They should stop. Those ones don’t have to be sent to jail. They are greedy, should exit leadership and return parish SACCO funds,’ Museveni explained.
He further complained that some PDM funds had been stolen by the so-called ‘focal persons’, parish chiefs and complicit local leaders.
‘That’s not how PDM is supposed to be. the ones who extorted money from the people; I mean those who took a part of money off the intended cash out for PDM; those are going to prison,’ Museveni remarked at Kololo on January 26,
Museveni disclosed plans to expand allocations, particularly in urban parishes, to between Shs300 million and Shs400 million per parish, but said this would come amid efforts to bring all rural households into the money economy within about three years.
‘Graduate fund, Shs15m for political leaders’
Museveni also urged residents to join the general parish savings and credit cooperative (SACCO), stressing that beneficiaries must be aged above 18 and that the order of beneficiaries should be determined through general parish meetings under the new PDM reforms.
‘I hear that in PM Nabbanja’s area, locals use a lottery to decide the order of beneficiaries. So, we’re going to amend those PDM rules,’ Museveni added.
According to him, PDM will be complemented by other wealth-creation initiatives, including ghetto funds, boda-boda support and grants for unemployed university graduates.
‘.the cultural leaders, we shall create funds for them and religious leaders in their dioceses; university graduates who haven’t got jobs for two years; political leaders, we shall add Shs15 million to them per parish,’ he said.
‘What we want is everybody to be involved in wealth creation,’ Museveni added, arguing that once households are economically empowered, the government can concentrate on free education, health care and other social services over the next 5 years.