"Now Is the Time for Truth" — Akena Slams Museveni’s Economic Claims

Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) President Jimmy Akena has dismissed key economic claims made by President Museveni in the 2025/26 national budget speech. He accused the National Resistance Movement (NRM) of misrepresenting statistics and revising history to take undue credit for Uganda’s economic progress.Speaking in Kampala, Akena challenged Museveni’s claim that Uganda’s economy had expanded 15 times since 1986 and that tax rates had fallen significantly. He argued that such statistics ignore important economic realities affecting Ugandans.

Akena pointed to the sharp depreciation of the Uganda shilling, which fell from Shs 14 to the dollar in the late 1980s to over Shs 3,600 today. He described this as a loss in value exceeding 25,000%.

He questioned how such currency collapse could coincide with claims of economic growth. “If the currency has lost that much value, how can we claim the economy has grown 55 times?” Akena asked, casting doubt on the reported figures.

Akena also accused Museveni of rewriting history by presenting himself as the architect of Uganda’s liberalized economy. He argued that the NRM initially maintained a fixed exchange rate and only later adopted liberalization policies.

He emphasized that many of the economic reforms credited to the NRM were inherited from UPC, including the Revised Recovery Programme.

According to Akena, the NRM rebranded these policies as the Rehabilitation and Development Plan.

“Without those programs, Uganda would have been in a total mess,” Akena said, underscoring the UPC’s role in stabilizing the economy during earlier challenging times.

Looking ahead, Akena said the UPC would make “economic truth-telling” central to its 2026 campaign. The party plans to challenge what it calls the NRM’s “quasi-economic theories” and expose their inaccuracies.

He labeled the NRM leadership as “fraudsters” who had “fluked their way through 38 years” of governance. “Now is the time for truth,” Akena stated, promising to reveal a more accurate economic narrative for Uganda