President Yoweri Museveni has assured the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of different companies that his government is focusing on a spectrum of strategic stimuli to enable them to produce goods and services at a cheaper cost.
“The atmosphere of business in Uganda is influenced by a spectrum of strategic stimuli. Certain stimuli are crucial for the business to succeed. Now, these stimuli are many. But I think the NRM is getting them right. They include first of all peace which is a very important stimulus. Like this area (Nwoya) was a war zone but you can see what is now happening. We see hotels instead of guns. That stimulus is crucial and it’s continuing,” President Museveni said.
The President made the remarks during the 3rd Presidential CEO Forum Bi-Annual Private Sector CEO Forum at Chobe Safari Lodge on Tuesday.
Running under the theme, “Unlocking Private Sector Investment through Strategic Interventions for Socio-Economic Transformation”, the 3rd Bi-Annual Private Sector CEO Retreat sought to stimulate CEOs’ participation in focusing on promoting, harnessing and popularizing the Private Sector’s role in Uganda’s socio-economic transformation.
The Presidential CEO Forum PCF is driven by Ugandans who are passionate about pursuing a movement of Uganda First which is set to drive the Private Sector expectations that will facilitate government to remain committed to attaining the middle-income status by 2025 and achieving vision 2040 as guided by the NDPIII framework.
Apart from peace, the President told the Private Sector CEOs that Education is also very crucial in driving businesses because investments need an educated workforce and skills to run them.
“That should not be a concern because we already have over 15 learners in schools. Health is also crucial for the work force then you have research. But to assist in business, you need to narrow the focus on the stimuli. You need to focus on some strategic stimuli for the business to grow. For NRM we added some strategic stimuli like roads. You can see the roads from Kitgum, Arua, Gulu and the Sudan side. We need to ensure that this country is linked with well-tarmacked roads,” the Head of State added.
Gen Museveni, however, revealed that roads are not the best means of transport when it comes to moving cargo.
What would be better is the railway and I want to inform you that we are working on the old railway from Kampala to Malaba, Mbale, Lira all the way to Pakwach. The railway is cheaper. We are also looking at water transport. We have a free highway of water. So, somebody can move cargo on water. Use water from Kisumu, across Lake Victoria to a place called Nsungezi in Mbarara. The Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives should look into these and advise our business people accordingly,” he said.
“So as a strategy to lower the costs of production and become competitive. We need to focus on these strategic stimuli. Apart from tarmac and Marram roads, I want to emphasize the usage of railway and water transport. Western Uganda has thieves. They stole the Railway lines. There was a railway line from Kampala to Kasese. But those people stole the rails. What we are going to do is to build a new railway from Kampala to Kasese, then from Uganda to South Sudan. We want a low cost of transport for our cargo so that we can become competitive.”
Mr Museveni further noted that the NRM government is working around the clock to lower the electricity tariffs to also enable the business people to lower the cost of production.
Another stimulus is electricity but some people from the Ministry of Energy made a mistake with Bujagali Hydropower station management by allowing the high tariff cost of 13 cents per unit. Now the new power station at Karuma that we are building with the Chinese, the cost of a unit is over 4 cents. We are bringing down the costs. The target is to have cheap electricity.”
The President also promised the CEOs that he will ensure that they will be able to get working loans from Uganda Development Bank (UDB) at a low-interest rate (from 12 to 10 percent) and longer time payback time.
On the issue of regional trade, Mr Museveni said; “Cross-border trade is improving. I see the new government of Kenya, DRC, South Sudan, and Burundi has no problem, Rwanda’s border was recently opened, and with Tanzania, we still have some issues but others are now open to trade with us. There’s also a huge market for milk in Algeria. We need to deal with these seasonal outbreaks of ‘kalusu’ because it’s the only factor that can block us from importing our milk to Algeria.”
Regarding the risks on the production side as far as agriculture is concerned, President Museveni said the biggest challenge the country has currently is the weather. He, however, said this can be solved if stakeholders adopt irrigation.
“Answer number one is the gift from God is gravity irrigation. We are only using Mubuku for irrigation but we are going to use more of those rivers around Rwenzori for gravity irrigation. We are going to do more of this gravity irrigation but to over the whole country, we have a got a manufacturer who is going to produce solar powered water pumps that shall help us to shift from rain-fed to solar powered water pump irrigation,” he stated.