If there's no bread, eat cassava, Museveni tells Ugandans

President Yoweri Museveni.

By Daily Monitor

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President Yoweri Museveni has advised Ugandans to eat cassava as alternative to

bread whose price has gone up due to disruptions in global wheat supply.

His Labour-Day call dashed the hopes of many vulnerable Ugandans who were still counting on his government to initiate short-term measures to cushion them against the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities.

Addressing the nation from Kololo ceremonial grounds, Mr Museveni said the skyrocketing prices were as a result of Covid-19 and exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“If there is no bread eat mwogo (cassava). Africans really confuse themselves. You are complaining that there's no bread or wheat, please eat mwogo.  I don’t eat bread myself,” Mr Museveni said.

The price of bread has shot through the rough in the land-locked East African nation, with a 50-gramme loaf going for US$1.03.

The price is quite steep in a country where a large percentage of the population still survives on less than a dollar a day.

In the first half of 2021, Uganda's Finance ministry reported that 28 per cent of Ugandans were poor. That rate had increased from 18 percent before the pandemic.

In line with World Bank practice, the official poverty line is the equivalent of $ 1.90 purchasing power per day and head.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mid this week warned that surging food and energy prices stoked by the war in Ukraine may lead to "social unrest" in Africa.

Most countries south of the Sahara are already seeing a slowdown in economic growth from last year, and the impact will be amplified by the rising cost of cereals and fuel, it said.

Some of the crises that have rocked Eastern Africa countries, including the toppling of Sudan leader Hassan Omar Al-Bashir, were sparked off by high prices of bread.

However, Mr Museveni said he was not worried given that his government is not entirely doing nothing to save the situation.

"The issue of skyrocketing commodity prices like petrol, fertilisers, among other essential commodities, are man-made by our friends in Europe,” he said.

“We are trying to talk to them quietly. I’m not worried. We shall find solutions. We are quietly talking to Western Europe and Russia. We shall brief you (Ugandans) about what we are doing at the right time.”

He further reiterated that the Parish Development Model (PDM), an initiative by government to uplift nearly 40 percent of Ugandans still stuck in subsistence to commercial production would help create jobs as well as boost household income.

"Before we (NRM) came to power, only the few educated were rich and benefiting from government programmes while most of our people were poor," Mr Museveni said.

“But we said no! If you sensitise them properly they can get out of poverty…The Parish Development Model should kick-start us to have about 60 million workers.”

In a veiled swipe at critics of the controversial coffee deal which ministry of Finance signed with Uganda Vinci Coffee Company (UVCC), Mr Museveni appealed to Ugandans to stop using a language that depict lack of enthusiasm for foreign investments in the country.

“I want to advise Ugandans that you can encourage the indigenous investors if they are there but do not show lack of enthusiasm for investors from outside. No one can beat me in Africanism, but I welcome all investors,” he said.

According to him, the coffee debate is “very interesting.”

“I am even glad that people are putting their views in writing. They are attacking the coffee deal that it is bad. We are going to study you now that you have put your thoughts in black and white,” he added.