President Yoweri Museveni has made a case for creating wealth as well as the integration of countries in East Africa. This, during the inauguration of Kenya’s 5th President, William Ruto at Kasarani Stadium on Tuesday.
While giving his remarks, President Museveni who started by congratulating William Ruto upon being elected Kenya’s 5th the President, thanked former President Uhuru Kenyatta for leading Kenya for the past ten years.
Museveni said that while watching one of the local stations in Kenya recently, he was pleased to see journalists expounding on politics of values and identity.
“Normally, I don’t watch television stations in the neighbouring countries but whenever there are elections like in Tanzania or Kenya, I watch their television channels. I was scanning through them and I watched something called KTN News Kivumbi where most of the time they were talking mainly about sharing power and sharing resources,” Museveni said on Tuesday.
“Then there was another young man with a lot of grey hair and he made a good point and that was, the polics of identity Vs the politics of issues and I said ‘these young people are beginning to get somewhere’. But then another one said: ‘You are talking of distributing resources, where will these resources come from?’,”
“So, I would appeal to all the political class in Africa to answer the question of where prosperity comes from. According to my experience of 60 years, I would advise Africans to know that prosperity comes from wealth creation – you must create wealth, and wealth is not the same as natural resources,” he added.
According to President Museveni, a country may have the natural resources and fail to get wealth out of them.
“The wealth means commercial agriculture, manufacturing, services like hotels and ICT. Now if I own a hotel, it is my wealth but that hotel creates jobs for Kenyans or Ugandans. The linkage between wealth and jobs,” Museveni said.
He noted that he had not read the Manifestos of both William Ruto and Raila Odinga but he was quick to reveal that: “I know His Excellency Ruto, I have met him a number of times in Uganda and I know he likes ideas and frank talking.”
H.E. Ruto had earlier introduced President Yoweri Museveni as the father of the region.
He said while watching the local television, he realized that journalists there were only focusing on Kenya alone as oppose to East African integration, which to him, is the key to prosperity for the region.
“Now what I found a problem in that KTN News Kivumbi was that in all the things they were talking about, they did not include the East African integration. All they talked about was Kenya,” he said.
“And one of them the other evening was quoting the example of former U.S. President Roosevelt, who started a program in 1934 which created jobs and so on, but Roosevelt was utilizing the huge market of the United States which had already been created by some people who had a vision,” he added.
Meanwhile, in his inaugural speech, President Ruto heaped praise on the country’s electoral body, IEBC, for stewarding what he called a transparent and credible election whose result faithfully reflects the democratic will of the people of Kenya.
“It is appropriate to single out the Chairperson of the IEBC, Wafula Chebukati, for standing firm, resisting bribery, intimidation and blackmail and doing the right thing,” he said.
He would than pledge to work with his rival Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua.