NAKASEKE.Senior Presidential Advisor on Defence and Security Gen Caleb Akandwanaho popularly known as Salim Saleh has distanced self from alleged land grabbing syndicates across the country .
He said people who link him to land grabbing are simply misinformed insisting that his key goal is to transform Uganda into an industrial country .
“I have a dilemma because NRM does not understand me, and NUP does not understand me,” he said.
“If NRM understood me, they would be campaigning for me that I’m not a land grabber — instead of letting others suspect me to be one. You saw my friend Kyagulanyi recently saying that I’m a land grabber,” Gen Saleh said while addressing a group of top CEOs during a meeting at Namunkekera Industrial Park in Nakaseke District on Friday
Saleh , the brain behind Namunkekera Industrial Park and also President Museveni’s powerful younger brother was responding to recent remarks by National Unity Platform presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine who accused him of being a land grabber .
“We both owned beaches, mine at Garuga and Bobi Wine at Busabala but I sold mine in Garuga and moved to Kapeeka. In terms of land grabbing, he might even be a bigger land grabber than me,” he said.
Gen Saleh said Uganda’s political class suffers from a “disconnect,” arguing that many leaders are out of touch with realities on the ground between local governments and the investment community.
He accused them of spending too little time with “the productive forces” driving the economy.
“You should spend more time with the productive forces, not with people who are paid to attend your political rallies,” Gen Saleh said, in a veiled rebuke of politicians he accused of doing little to rally the population toward productive work or to raise awareness about ongoing government programmes.
Addressing a group of CEOs, including leading bankers, retired Gen Saleh highlighted Uganda’s ongoing land challenges, linking them to delays in the Chaapa loan, land acquisition loans, and the planned land fund, which he said partly underpins unrest over land in parts of the country.
“The Chaapa loan is the most liberating tool that banks could offer the country, given the contradictions in the land governance system. We have landlords with conflicted land and citizens who lack possession,” Gen Saleh held.
He urged private sector leaders to commit more to national development.
Earlier, Deputy NRM Secretary General Rose Namayanja Nsereko explained why the CEOs had convened under the Presidential Forum and outlined their role in the ongoing mobilization of citizens for economic progress.
Bank of Uganda Deputy Governor Prof Augustus Nuwagaba and Presidential CEO Forum Chair Emmanuel Katongola presented papers on Uganda’s economic progress and the private sector’s contribution to national industrialization. “We are on the right track as Uganda because President Museveni has set strong pillars for the industrialization of the economy,” Prof Nuwagaba emphasized.