President Museveni has cleared religious leaders to start distributing food to certain target groups in the communities. The development comes after the President’s meeting with the Inter-Religious Council (IRCU) on Wednesday.

The President, however, cautioned the religious leaders to comply with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) provided by the Ministry of health.

The religious leaders tabled various ideas to the President on how they can collaborate with the government in fighting coronavirus..

The President suggested that the food is only given to the hand-to-mouth group.

“We don’t want to make people so lame by becoming dependent on food handouts. I need to agree with you on the strict definition of who should give you food. Even when you are bringing up children, they should never be an idea of free things. Some people are mixing this with poverty eradication, which is wrong. Medicine for poverty has other bigger programs like wealth creation,” he said.

The President also said that he was going to discuss with URA and UCC to see if religious-based stations can be exempted from tax during this period.

The religious heads including Mufti Sheikh Mubajje Ramadhan, Apostle Serwadda thanked Museveni for his transparency in the fight against COVID19.