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By Grace Matsiko
and Stephen Illungole
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni yesterday flagged off 164,000 pieces of men�s pair of shorts to America, the first textile export under the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) initiative.
An excited Museveni carried a box containing 12 pieces of seaweed and stone-coloured shorts on his head to a waiting 40-feet truck outside the Tri-Star Uganda Limited factory in Bugolobi near Kampala, amidst cheers from the audience which included US ambassador to Uganda, Jimmy Kolker.
The group�s chairman, Kumar Dewapura and managing director Vellupillai Kananathan, the minister for the Presidency, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, trade minister Prof. Edward Rugumayo, presidential advisor on AGOA, Onegi-Obel and AGOA presidential assistant, Susan Muhwezi, looked happy to see the much criticised project bearing fruits.
�Wait, wait, I want these people to take the picture so that I am on record,� Museveni said to Kolker as he laid the heavy box in the truck.
Rugumayo said the first consignment proved wrong government critics who said the project would not take off.
�Americans this time have become Christians. For a long time, they have not been practising Christianity, they blocked our exports. But now they have adhered to Christian teaching and opened their markets for us,� Museveni said.
Kumar said by January 26, Tri-Star will have installed new machines capable of making 50,000 pieces of finished products per day and a plant that can wash 25,000 pieces at a go, making it the biggest plant in Africa.
Museveni said, �If we had 1000 units of such (factories) in Uganda, we would not have unemployment.
�These are over 1,000 jobs created. Come, come, photograph them, don�t photograph me,� Museveni said as he directed his cameraman to the girls working in the factory.
�If someone kills jobs for 1,000 people, why shouldn�t he be hanged? Why should you hang someone who has killed just one person?� he asked.
Museveni, who took to task Keith Muhak!
anizi, t
he director for economic affairs in the finance ministry, over the delay to complete the washing plant, threatened to take over its construction if the contractors continued at such a slow pace.
�I preach unity in Uganda but now it is time I teach disunity. I separate (those who want development) from those who don�t want Uganda to change. The politicians and the civil servants must change,� he said. Ends
Published on: Monday, 23rd December, 2002 |
