Government has embarked on the promotion of improved goats’ rearing project among youths in Karamoja region to discourage cattle rustling as a cultural practice.
Over the weekend, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni handed over several goats to selected youths benefiting from the project in the region.
The animals are procured under the improved goats’ project, a government initiative being implemented through the Ministry of Karamoja Affairs.
The project aims at supporting the rehabilitation of youths who have volunteered to abandon rustling as a cultural practice.
“We are also telling the leaders to interest wanainchi in alternative activities that will guarantee prosperity. Therefore, in Karamoja region, government has come up with a resettlement package for youth who volunteer out of this mess,” President said.
Under this initiative, government is giving out a total of 16 goats per and 26 iron sheets person to facilitate permanent structures within the region.
A total of seventy one thousand five hundred and fifty goats (71,550), will be distributed to beneficiaries from all the 9 districts that make up Karamoja. Each beneficiary will receive sixteen (16) Galla goats, 15 female and 1 male galla Boer.
“This idea that it is a way of life (culture) for young people to be involved in cattle rustling is risky for their lives as it pits them against state machinery where they have no chance and indeed many of them have died in these skirmishes,” President noted.
President congratulated a group of youths in the region for volunteering to abandon cattle rustling as a cultural practice within Karamoja region.
“I congratulate the young people who have decided to get out of this mistake, like the muzukullu Lomonyang Silvia a 32 year old resident of Lokitumo, Mogoth Parish in Moroto who convinced her husband Keem Akol to surrender his gun to the UPDF for the sake of her family and for peace,” President said.
This is one of the packages which will enable them settle and rehabilitate themselves through improved livelihood. The project also support the process of disarmament.
Apart from the goats’ project, President Museveni suggested that the reformed worriers form groups that will be supported to make cement bricks that will later be bought by government and business people in the region.
President Museveni is currently appraising the security situation in areas affected by the criminality of cattle rustling within Northern and Eastern regions.