President Yoweri Museveni has challenged Moslem leaders and other religious leaders to incorporate the message of fighting household poverty in their preaching as one way of getting Ugandans out of povert.
Museveni who is running for the post of President as flag bearer of the the ruling national Resistance Movement said that his government welcomes all religious institutions to join hands in fighting poverty using their close relationship with their faithful.
president Museveni addressing a crowd
He was speaking Tuesday as he joined hundreds of Muslims at Arua Primary School grounds in Arua Municipality to mark the holy festival of Eid al Aduha.
He congratulated the Moslem community in Uganda and the world upon the holy cerebrations of Idi adhuha and asked them to continue to serve and give praise to God -Allah for the gift of life and for protecting them up to this day.
Museveni said that if all Ugandan households had sources of income, it would be easy for religious organizations to fund their development activities by raising funds from their followers.
“Your leader has just told me about the need for a bigger mosque and that there are 34,000 Muslims in Arua municipality, if all these had a source of income they would build the mosque themselves,” he said.
According to a news statement from Statehouse, Museveni promised to work closely with the Arua Moslem leaders in future so as have a decent and spacious place of worship for the Moslem community in the municipality. He expressed happiness at the existing good relationship between the Muslim and other faiths in Uganda and encouraged them to work towards making it even better.