President Museveni chose not to address the newly sworn-in Cabinet ministers yesterday. Instead, he promised to deliver his remarks during the 2026/27 Budget Day, scheduled for this Thursday.
His speech will highlight the main priorities for his new Cabinet and reiterate his commitment to the ‘no more sleep’ agenda.
The President, according to State House insiders and ruling party officials, is expected to unveil his seventh elective term priorities that directly affect ordinary Ugandans and align with his commitment to accelerate the country’s journey towards high middle-income status while ensuring that no citizen is left behind. Additional details are expected to emerge from a Cabinet retreat planned for later this month.
As the country awaits the President’s address, Daily Monitor yesterday engaged key stakeholders from across the political divide to gather insights on the critical challenges that the incoming Cabinet must tackle as they assume their respective statutory roles.
Rose Namayanja, NRM’s Deputy Secretary General
Wealth creation and household incomes.
Youth employment and skills
Quality education and healthcare
Industrialisation and private sector growth
Fighting corruption through stronger accountability in service delivery and reducing budget leakages.
Julius Mukunda, Head of Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group
Promote Commercial Diplomacy: With our trade deficit exceeding $2 billion annually, our embassies must pivot into active trade desks. We need aggressive commercial diplomacy to open foreign markets, boost Ugandan exports, and attract FDI.
Fix the Shs10 trillion Domestic Arrears: This debt, equivalent to nearly 6 percent of our GDP, is suffocating thousands of local contractors. Clearing it is an economic emergency that will instantly inject liquidity back into the private sector and stabilise local banks.
Address Corruption Head-On: Public procurement accounts for over 70 percent of the national budget, yet the Auditor General reports consistently flag billions of shillings in leakages. We need strict enforcement and zero tolerance to plug these procurement holes.
Fix youth unemployment and wealth creation: Over 75 percent of our population is under the age of 30. We must shift from rhetoric to action by providing accessible credit to youth-led SMEs and commercialising agriculture to target the creation of at least 500,000 new jobs annually.
Improve PIMS (Public Investment Management): With development spending consuming over 20 percent of the national budget, we must reform PIMS to eliminate the massive cost overruns and stalled ‘white elephant’ projects, ensuring maximum return on investment for every taxpayer shilling. Delivering on these five areas will stabilise our economy and restore public trust.
Prof Venansius Baryamureeba, computer scientist, academic, former presidential aspirant
Prioritisation and efficient use of the use of government resources in strategic areas.
Zero tolerance to corruption, i.e., they must fully fight corruption.
Creating an enabling policy and legal environment for doing business to attract foreign direct investments and local investments in the economy.
Focus on the improvement of social services for all.
Improve service delivery through full implementation of e-government.
David Bahati, State Minister for Industry
Industrialisation
Boosting exports
Wealth creation through the Parish Development Model
Creation of jobs
Peace and security
Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, Former Shadow Finance Minister
The new Cabinet must tackle the current unemployment crisis, especially among the youth. The 2024 Census put the figure of youth aged 18 to 30 at about 10.6 million. Five million of these are not in employment or education.
The second issue is health and education (human capital development). According to a World Bank human capital development report, children in school today will not exceed 39 percent of productivity, the world average is 50, because of low investment in education and health.
Business discontinuation crisis. Again, according to the World Bank, every four businesses that start, three close before their fifth birthday.
The most important issues of human rights and democracy. Youths kidnapped and tortured by the military during elections must be freed.
All political prisoners, including Dr Kizza Besigye, must be freed. This should be followed by necessary reforms to create certainty.
Dr Akankwasa Barirega, Executive Director of the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)
Strengthening institutions to deliver critical services for economic production.
Refocusing spending in productive sectors that generate more resources for the people of Uganda.
Sustainable management of the environment as a pillar for economic growth and transformation. No economy can be sustained without rainfall, water, clean air, etc.
Reducing government red tape to facilitate faster and more efficient service delivery to the citizens through digitization and automation of government processes.
Changing the citizen mindset from observers and talkers to active participation in service delivery and the transformation process. Citizens must be told the hard truth instead of being told only what pleases them. Hard truth builds a lasting nation.
Erias Lukwago, Former Kampala Lord Mayor
Governance issues, particularly the release of political prisoners and addressing the deteriorating human rights situation, as well as the restoration of the Rule of law.
Concrete macroeconomic interventions geared towards addressing the devastating unemployment crisis.
Realignment of the levers of power from the kitchen cabinet to the conventional cabinet and embark on implementation of the NDP1V, whose thrust is the 10-fold growth strategy.
Work towards ensuring the functionality of government institutions, including fighting corruption and theft of public funds.
Establishing a constitutional order that guarantees orderly succession to power.
Prof Mouhammad Mpezamihigo, VC Equator University of Science and Technology in Uganda
Enhancement of transparency by Public officers
Mapping national development through fair distribution of resources and the national cake.
Prioritisation of health, education, and food security
Full enforcement of the law against corrupt officers.
Reduction of waste of public resources in financing non-priority activities.
Beti Kamya Turwomwe, Former Inspector General of Government
Corruption
Corruption
Corruption
Eron Kiiza, Human Rights lawyer
The Cabinet needs to resurrect the Ugandan economy and stop pretending it is doing well while it’s sinking, so that Ugandans can work here rather than fleeing into slavery.
Uganda needs to sort governance by removing the military from civilian affairs and focusing it on national defence rather than having it run the show in Cabinet, Parliament, police, immigration, and even guarding private property, farms, and investors.
Cabinet needs to nurture Ugandan talent through education, music, sports, and technology.
Theodore Ssekikubo, Lwemiyaga Resident and former MP
Corruption: According to the IGG Report, the known annual amount embezzled is Shs12 trillion.
Wasteful expenditures across the board.
Emphasis on areas of comparative advantage – all-round agriculture, and harnessing the emerging areas of science and technology.
Health and education for healthy and productive Ugandans.
Infrastructure. Fixing the roads, railways, and tapping the economic potential from all parts of the country.
Prof Ogenga Latigo, Former Leader of Opposition and farmer
Investing in countryside agricultural development and rural transformation.
Focus on education that benefits all and caters for the huge number of 1-5 year old children, most of child mothers.
Upgrading to all-weather rural access roads and tarmacking the main streets of all major towns.
Investing in effective health service provision, particularly adequate staffing and remuneration; visible, prompt, and effective medical service- examination, treatment/surgery, medication, and home care.ing corruption, inequity in employment, and excessive wastage of national resources.
Marshall Alenyo, Jonam County MP
Wealth creation.
Fighting corruption.
Efficiency of the government institutions.
Championing of natural resources like oil to kick-start the economy.
Promote East African integration for a bigger regional market.
Wilfred Niwagaba, City Lawyer and former MP, Ndorwa County-East.
Release political prisoners and stop the continued disappearances of some of our citizens
Address the disparity in payment of arts and science civil servants, coupled with the current standoff on payment of medical interns, must also be addressed.
The state of the infrastructure, especially road networks, district and community access roads, and rural electrification.
All these cannot be addressed unless the budget priorities are reconfigured, coupled with minimising leakages of the taxpayers’ money
Crispin Kugiza Kaheru, Member, Uganda Human Rights Commission
Household incomes and jobs. The biggest political question is whether Ugandans can earn, save, feed, provide quality education for their children, and have money in their pockets. I hope this Cabinet can turn stability into jobs, especially for young people.
Production and value addition. They should promote a drive against exporting raw potential or material. Our agriculture, minerals, oil and tourism must be organised around value addition, industrialisation, standards, storage, markets and Ugandan ownership/BUBU.
Cabinet must make leakages politically expensive, and delivery administratively compulsory.
The Cabinet must move from talking to structural action.
They must ramp up independent prosecution of public officers, digitization of procurement, and seriously implement the moratorium on new administrative units.
This Cabinet must treat education, healthcare, skilling, and nutrition as economic investments rather than social expenditures.
Bureaucratic reform. Eliminate duplication, merge overlapping functions, reduce unnecessary administrative layers, digitize government services, accelerate decision-making, and ensure that every public institution delivers measurable value for us promptly, but also with value for money.