SHEEMA – Sheema district woman Member of Parliament Jacklet Atuhaire Rwabukurukuru has asked residents to embrace agriculture in order to fight the looming poverty due to COVID-19.
Ms Rwabukurukuru said this while handing over 80,000 hoes to Sheema district COVID-19 taskforce on Tuesday at the district headquarters.
She said that Sheema district used to be a food basket but it worries her when she sees people begging for a kilogram of posho in order to survive.
“I couldn’t give you posho because posho cannot last for even a week but this hoe will last for years and if you use productively it can make you a billionaire, use it to cultivate both food and cash crops such that in case of any other epidemic, it finds you well prepared with enough food,” she said.
Ms Rwabukurukuru urged the locals not to sell the hoes given to them for any other cheap thing but rather use them profitably for their own good.
“Please do not be tempted to sell these hoes but use them for your own good. Sheema district has about 80,000 families and I hope that every household will be able to get a hoe,” she said.
She added “In the past years, Sheema district used to be a food basket but these days things changed that is why you find people crying for just kilograms of posho. That was not the culture of Sheema to find a family that does not have what to put on a saucepan.”
Sheema district Resident Commissioner Frank Kyereere applauded Ms Rwabukurukuru for being the first leader in the district to think about the issue of the people in the district.
“You are the first leader in Sheema district to donate something which all people will share equally. Allow me handover the hoes to Chairperson LCIs to distributee them in their respective villages.” Mr Kyerere said.
Mr Kyerere warned to arrest anybody who mismanages the distribution of the hoes “I want to warn all LCI Chairpersons, that whoever doesn’t supply these hoes equally, will be arrested.”
Mr Kyerere said, “This is not the first time Jacklet suppored people of Sheema in agriculture, this year in March, she supplied fertilizers to people of Sheema to help them in the planting season, she gave free maize seeds, beans, soya beans and potato stems to people of Sheema district.”