President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni reassured Ugandans that the government has no plans of offering subsidies, reducing taxes, or slashing fuel taxes during his address on current affairs on Wednesday night.
Museveni said that instead of the government slashing taxes, it should invest in bigger projects like palm oil, electric trains, and buses among others.
“Therefore, the mistake of subsidies and tax cuts are two; you mislead people not to know that the situation is bad and also kill their ability to economize. In the end, you might transform the high prices into shortages. So, instead of the money being put into subsidizing the present mistake, we would rather put the money into a safer way; so we are building more capacity for our palm oil,” says Museveni.
The president said his government is going to intensify its promotion of palm oil growing in areas such as Kalangala, Buvuma, and Maruzi.
“There is a difference between high prices and shortage; if you subsidize this danger, people will continue buying more and more because you will have created an artificial comfort for them to think things are normal yet they are not normal.
He maintained that the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine is causing a shift in the Western world from fossil fuels.
The president says the future of petroleum is slowly diminishing and that Uganda should embrace electric cars, motorcycles and the use of trains.
“The correct way is to start moving away from petrol to electric cars and using the railway for transport, especially of cargo. This is the solution to go for. The good thing is that we have started manufacturing electric buses here. They need Shs 20 billion to make more buses at Kiira.
Instead of spending money to subsidize the mistakes, we should put into getting out of the mistake,” says Museveni.
He added; “When this was passed as a declaration, the oil companies which were looking for petroleum stopped because petroleum will be phased out. Because of no more exploration, the little fuel that is there is very expensive.
The high prices come from the worry of banning petroleum products because there is no more exploration,” Museveni said, adding that even if the war ends, the prices are likely to remain high.
Currently, petrol buys between Shs 6500-7000 a liter.