Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) is this week marking 31 years of struggle. Over the past three decades, the force has recorded numerous milestones both on the battlefront as well as in improving the lives of soldiers.

In an exclusive interview with The Sunrise Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) argues that much of the successes have largely come from improved welfare and good leadership. Below are excerpts.

Qn. You have previously noted that your emphasis as an institution is on raising soldier's welfare. What steps have you taken to realise this objective?
Ans. The first aspect of welfare is equipping soldiers with skills and weapons to enable them to face the enemy.

We have been focusing on good training, good arming and good leadership. With proper training, soldiers are confident of their weapons, they are motivated to know that they are superior to the enemy and they are not scared of facing the enemy.

We have done quite a lot in this area. As we speak, our soldiers are well trained, they are well equipped, they are well led and they beat the enemy all the time.

Qn. What specific achievements have been recorded in those various fields?

Training
Ans. In the area of training, we have made tremendous progress. We no longer train in mama-ingiya-pole - (make-shift houses). We have replaced them with well built structures.  The last training school I invite you to photograph before it is wiped out by buildings is in Nakaseke district, Ngoma sub-county, Kinyogoga parish.

We also have other places like Jinja cantonment - Kimaka - for junior and senior staff as well as specialised courses. In addition, we do air force training at Entebbe. You must have witnessed training in sophisticated equipment flying around - in newly acquired jet fighters.

We have other places at Kabamba for cadet and tank training, and at Kasenyi for training of special forces. But a soldier will say; okay, I have trained well and my gun hasn't let me down. What next?

Healthcare
In healthcare, first of all we have to know that war is war. There is no guarantee that you'll not be shot at or wounded. So in the event that you're injured or you're bitten by mosquitoes while in the field, you get proper health care. We have addressed this issue in two major ways; medicare in the battle field and HIV/AIDS Management.

Surviving in the battlefield
Without a sound medical system, there is no army that can survive in the battle field. We have put great emphasis on fighting and fighting for survival.

For that matter therefore, we equip soldiers with first aid skills. For instance if a soldier is wounded, he knows that he can for example tie a handkerchief on the wound before he can be taken to the next level where he meets a trained doctor who can handle complex cases like how to stop further damage, infection  or continued bleeding.

We also have field hospitals that are in position to admit soldiers with severe injuries, in addition to providing health care to civilians but on a limited scale so as to avoid congestion. For example, we have an outstanding field hospital at Nzara in Western Equatorial - South Sudan. It is one of the best in the world.

In case the field hospital is unable to handle a certain case, the patient is evacuated to a higher level such as a brigade, a division right up to the new military hospital in Bombo or Mulago national referral hospital.

And if that still is not enough, patients can be taken abroad - but those are very rare cases. All along these stages, treatment is given and an evaluation is made to see that if you're okay, you go back and fight.

HIV/AIDS Management
Beyond battle-related health problems, we offer HIV management. This includes, treatment and increasing awareness about the problem. Right now, we have reasonable levels of HIV/AIDS awareness among all soldiers.

In addition, we have HIV clinics and well-trained personnel who handle counselling, treatment and post treatment. We do this in collaboration with the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC) at Lubowa along Entebbe road. JCRC was started by the ministry of defence and its one of the most advanced centres of excellence in handling HIV/AIDS in the world.

It is because of these collaborations with institutions like JCRC, that we're able to have soldiers who have the disease but are able to go into operations in Congo, Karamoja and Somalia and are able to come back because they are handled by well trained doctors.

Qn. But you still have soldiers living in unipots. Why is this?
Ans. Accommodation is an unfinished business. But we have made tremendous progress. We have witnessed the long journey from the bush days of living under a tree and some improvised shelter to a well constructed mama-ingiya-pole.

Why we still have mama-ingiya-pole, it was the question of the vision of the president. Initially we had, as a country, so many problems in education, health, the economy and politics.

At the same time, as the UPDF,  we had the challenge of dealing with insurgencies. From 1986 to 2006 when Kony left this country, we had so far faced 25 insurgencies.

So the question was; where do you begin solving national problems? Do you begin with buildings? The president's vision was that we stick to priorities; These were and remain; Ammunition, Food, Medicare and Clothing, then the rest would follow. And as a force we were able to defeat all the insurgencies by sticking to priorities.

Improved housing
When we knew that we had largely defeated the insurgencies, we embarked on the construction of accommodation largely from scratch.

We had inherited some of them but they were all broken. We had to repair them and construct new ones. We started with low-cost housing at Kakiri, in Wakiso district and we have built so many others in Moroto, Mbarara, Hima, but we know that they are not enough.

But remember, we have all along been guided by the principles of prioritisation. In healthcare for example, we have made sure that the healthcare infrastructure in barracks was revamped.
We inherited some infrastructures from previous regimes, but almost all of them were broken down. We made sure that all the health units in the barracks were functioning.

As we speak, all divisions have a health unit categorised as Health centre 4 under the ministry of health ranking. Every brigade has a functioning health unit at the level of health centre 3. In addition to these, we have field hospitals. When we were fighting Kony, we had field hospitals that were even accessible to the wanainchi.

Yes, a soldier can stay in a mama-ingiya-pole but he should never be treated in a mama-ingiya-pole or be trained in a mama-ingiya-pole. However, we will continue to invest in accommodation to a point where every soldier will have a house.

We have two approaches to solving soldiers' accommodation. Through private contractors and through direct labour - by our own soldiers. We hope we shall tend more towards direct labour - using our own Engineers' brigade.

Qn. We have also heard of other initiatives aimed at improving soldiers' welfare, such as Wazalendo. Tell us about these?
Indeed, training and accommodation do not complete the issue of welfare. What completes it is also being paid a salary. In 2008, the least paid soldier was getting Ushs 143,000. Now it stands at around Ushs 260,000.

That is good because it has all these other supports like accommodation, good health care, clothing and food.  In addition to food and salary, we provide free education to soldiers' children . Even before UPE started, we had already started UPE and USE for soldiers. We have schools for fallen combatants as well as serving soldiers.

But what makes welfare even better is to have some innovations.

a) Savings scheme

Because the salary is not enough, we came up with the salary earners scheme - Wazalendo Sacco. We have been telling soldiers that instead of going to the banks, they should join Wazalendo and get low-interest loans. Wazalendo is now the largest SACCO in the country with a membership of some 52,000 and savings of over Ushs 19 billion.

Through Wazalendo, members can access four different types of loans;
- Education loan
- Nyumba loan  for house construction
- Biashara loan - or business loan  and
- Agricultural loan
The interest rates are very low because it runs on the principles of micro-finance. It is not a compulsory scheme but it is common sense  to save where you can access a loan at a low interest rate. Once you have your salary and you have other things catered for, it's good for you to think of living a better life in service and post service.

b) Army shop
Another element to anchor salary earners is the army shop, where soldiers find subsidised materials. Currently we deal only in building materials. These army shops are located at all the divisions.

c) Production
Now we are commencing on production to round up welfare. We had started in the 80s and 90s. But because of insurgencies and mismanagement, we got off track. Now we are embarking on production.

Using free land in barracks, we want to ensure that soldiers produce their own food such that they are able to save the 40% of their salary spent on food. It is also possible for individual soldiers to acess a commercial or  agricultural loan from the Wazalendo SACCO and do better in commerce or agriculture.

Qn. But it  appears you're re-orienting soldiers from their professional duties towards business. What's your comment?
No no, the army is so organised that we can produce and even fight. We get leave, we get time for training and during these periods, we can use it to develop ourselves. But also we have families.

When I am in Rwenzori fighting, the wife back home in the barracks can engage in productive agriculture. That does not in any way weaken our capabilities in defending the country. In any case, it reinforces us as well as reinforcing national security since soldiers will be motivated enough not to worry about their families back home.

In our new approach to food security, our initial focus is on equipping soldiers with knowledge about farming and using the existing technologies for their own benefit.

As an institution, we are also planning to put aside some land for commercial farming of fruits, maize and animal husbandry, which will eventually enhance the national budget.

Qn. We've heard that you have acquired a university.  How will you run it?
The proprietor of Lugazi University approached us and we were overwhelmingly convinced that this was a viable venture. So we approached the ministry of defence which agreed to buy the property.

After purchasing Lugazi University, are we going to run it as a university? No because we don't have capacity to do so now.

But that does not mean that we're not using it. We are now using it for Uganda Mechanical Engineering College of the UPDF (UMEC).  Currently, we have about 40 or more students doing a diploma in engineering. We shall also use it to train our Engineers to undertake the construction of the  railway.

We are going to commence research to see if we can establish the national defence college. In other words, it will be a campus with some colleges and schools.

Qn. What other key challenges do you face  as UPDF?
Yes, living with the challenges is what we do best. We have a number of challenges.

Completely end Karamojong warriors.

Right now there is peace in Karamoja. The leading activity in Karamoja now is development and not disarmament and we want to consolidate this.

The second challenge is to be prepared all the time. ADF [Allied Defence Forces rebel group] is still in Eastern DRC training, trading and arming. We told the Congolese army that can we work together? They said you wait; and when they were waiting, ADF attacked two units of the Congolese army and beat them.

On the domestic front, we are dealing with violent walk to work, criminal walk to work. Here police is the lead institution. But in case police finds that they need to get support, we step in to sustain peace and security.

Dealing away with Kony. Although he's no longer in Uganda, he remains a threat.

Then Al-shabaab, this is more at the regional front.

The other challenges are budgetary. However in terms of training levels, we think we are good enough to defend the country.