President Yoweri Museveni’s brother, Gen Caleb Akandwano aka Salim Saleh has called for candidate debate about the land question in Uganda. He notes that the current conflicts in Acholi and parts of the country.
Saleh, who is the Chair of the Uganda Development notes that land being the most important factor of production seems to quite distorted” “Now when we sent into the field as Operation wealth creation –OWC, we found it to be the most distorted fact of production. And that was land,” said Saleh, the Chief Coordinator of OWC.
The general was addressing the Fourth Uganda Development Forum meeting in Kampala under the theme “Sustaining Musevenomics: Navigating Uganda’s Economic Future in a Disrupted World”. He addressed the meeting virtually from his tactical base in Gulu where he has been camping for a number of years in order to “avoid the confusion in Kampala”
His presentation to the meeting was guided by what technical notes including that of the Chairperson physical planning board, Amanda Ngabirano. He said there is need for an understanding of the land use balance sheet in Uganda.
“Because land is a factor of production. Now Amanda is asking us do we really understand what to do with land in order to be able to feed people? By 2040 when we shall be forty million people” he said. He said if land is a dittoed factor of production, then it distorts other areas. He revealed that he is fundraising for money in order to conduct s study about who own land in Kampala and where.
“Because it is becoming a big discussion point. Everybody thinks I own half of Kampala. I think I have maximum two acres” he said.
“Now these are very important questions for all of us. Fortunately for me when ISO came, I had very good answers for them because we had already studied carefully the history, the utilization of that land in Kapeeka called Namunkekera”
Salehowns the Namunkekera-Liao Shen Industrial Park in Kapeeka. The park hosts several industries. “We know the stimuli that we used to resurrect the economy, we know the security of persons and property, privatization and liberalization, return of Asian properties and all those. But I want the conference to focus on the factor land as factor of production and we see these distortions,” he challenged the conference.
He said land in Uganda has become a conflicting matter not just in in Buganda but equally in Northern. There is a debate about the eviction of the balalo herdsmen from North Uganda.
“Even in northern Uganda right now the issue is land. The conflict between the Acholi and what they call balaalo or what we call migrant cattle keepers is about land. Speaking about his attempt to reach the moneyless people under the OWC in last ten years, Saleh said it has not been a very easy mission because they were told to go and look for people who have never touched money.
“We struggled with inputs, with coffee, with tea, all those inputs over that period. And statistically they say we able to reduce the people out of the money economy from 68% to about 39%” he revealed.
Working with Norbert Mao and Democratic Party
There has been debate within the Democratic Party following reports that Chairman Mao invited General Saleh to address the DP delegate’s conference scheduled to take place on Friday. Some of the DP supporters are reportedly uncomfortable with his presence.
Saleh used the Uganda Development Forum to state the fact that DP stalwarts constituted the bulk of ministers on Museveni’s cabinet when the NRM formed the government in 1986.
“Sixty percent of the ministers were from DP. So I have been arguing with Chairman Mao what cause the divorce. Because the divorce happened when I was here in Gulu in 1996. I think Chairman Mao is the one who caused that divorce because at that time he was really like fire,” said Saleh in what appeared like a chatty but serious matter.
He then revealed that he was personally not comfortable that the NRM had to divorce the party of individuals with whom they had worked for ten years.
“And in those ten years when we were working together, I think that is when Uganda was recording a double digit growth. But when we started fragmenting, that is when we got a lot of issues” said Saleh in what appeared like a soul-search testimony.
“He (Mao) is my vice chairperson in UDF in think-tanking. And we are doing very good work. So I wish him well in his delegate’s conference” he added.
The NRM and DP entered an alliance with DP in 2022. Some have stated that the alliance was to benefit Mao as an individual and the few party members surrounding him.
The Uganda Development Forum or think tank is a brainchild of General Saleh, deputized by the Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Norbert Mao. It has a number of experts including former spy chief David Pulkol and Dr. Philip Idro among others.