A meeting between President Museveni and youth leaders of the National Youth Council (NYC) in Jinja District, ended on a sad note after the President denied the youth’s financial expectations.

Over 342 youth leaders from different districts who had converged at Dams’ Water Stadium ask Museveni to give them 10 million Shillings each to foot their lodge expenses and also reward them for their efforts in supporting the NRM government.

Lillian Aber chairperson NYC requested President Museveni to forwards Shs10m to each of the youth leaders to facilitate their ‘personal problems’.

Museveni while replying to a number of their suggestions dismissed this specific request, urging that he would be setting a wrong precedent as a grandfather and perennial leader of this nation.

Museven advised them to form Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies-SACCOs that will benefit all youth and further pledged financial support to the youth council if they accept to form an all-inclusive youth Sacco.

During the meeting, Museveni also urged that they must protect our cultural heritage from Western Influence. They should change their mindset as citizens and choose to abandon the traditional methods of working for only ‘the stomach.

A section of youth delegates were disagreed with the President’s proposal. They are soon graduating from the youth age bracket and will be hard for them to access financial aid from the state.

The youth council chairperson for Jinja central division, Asuman Wandera, says that registration of Saccos is time-consuming and not a viable solution of empowering the youth.