Uganda micro-finance minister Haruna Kasolo wants a bill passed to let poor Ugandans to be beaten in order to work hard and know how to look for riches.

According to a report by Eye Radio in the country the minister said that the government of Museveni has put in place structures to lift the downtrodden lot from poverty and one of the ways to do that was flogging them.

“In future, government could pass a law in parliament whereby all the lazy poor people would be given strokes so that they can also learn to work and become rich because we have discovered that some Ugandans need to be pushed to wealth acquisition” he said.

“President Museveni and the ruling NRM government have put in place poverty eradication programs with the intention of making ugandans rich but many are still adamant and have remained poor,” he added.

The microfinance minister was speaking in a meeting of a group of small businesses in Sacco’s where the view point was to educate the masses on how to invest their hard earned incomes.

This is not the first time a senior minister made  such outrageous statements in Uganda.

Earlier last year in May the minister of internal affairs in the country stated that poor people will not go to heaven.

The Minister said that those praying to God help them out of poverty were disturbing the almighty as they were given hands to work and get riches.

He was speaking to students in a Business school where he told them that the panacea to eliminating poverty was working hard.

A 2022 World bank report ranked Uganda as a low income country, just after President Museveni and Finance Minister Matia Kasaija said the economy had risen to middle income status. About 41% of the country’s population are still living in poverty.