Uganda Business, Economy and Infrastructure News

[owo9ja]

of course. and its still going on

[BUTEMBO21]

What happened to the prevention strategy? its still the same regime.

[kihihi]

Originally Posted by BUTEMBO21

What happened to the prevention strategy? its still the same regime.

It is not the same regime because the western organizations put preconditions before we obtained western funding that we drop the original tactics and emphasize more on condoms and neglect the other methods. Therefore campaigns to create awareness about risky sex and avoidance of multiple partners were scrapped and people were told they were fine as long as they used condoms.This destroyed the mentality the government had created about risky sex as people felt safe with condoms which was wrong in situations where people could not regularly afford condoms.This increased the problem as the culture of safe sex was thrown out the door which in countries that are facing epidemics it may not be wise to drop your guard too early.

Countries like south africa and botswana are using these western tactics but nothing significant is happening as behaviourl change is the most important means of defence of societies facing epidemics not condoms.

[hakz2007]

News on Uganda's economy and infrastructure

[hakz2007]

UGANDAN GOVERNMENT PLANS NEW MULTI-BILLION BRIDGE AT JINJA DAM

KAMPALA, May 23 (NNN-NEW VISION) -- A multi-billion project to build a new bridge across River Nile at Jinja has taken-off. It will replace the bridge at Nalubaale dam (formerly known as Owen Falls dam), which has developed fatal cracks.

The Uganda National Roads Authority last week started compensating and resettling people who will be displaced by the new construction.

The project is jointly funded by the Ugandan government and Japan.

More than 30 structures, including Southern Nyanza Textile Industries and Nile Breweries plant will be demolished to pave way for the construction.

“We have identified the people and structures affected by the project, which will cost about sh5b in compensation,” said Dan Alinange, the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) spokesperson, said.

It will be a dual carriage bridge with four lanes. It will cost an estimated $115.7m (about sh248b). Construction work will start a few months from now and will last 42 months.

“Normally, we give an allowance of three to six months for the affected persons to relocate before we begin breaking the structures,” Alinange said.

The announcement comes at a time when cracks and potholes are eating away the existing bridge, raising fears about the safety of road users and the hydro-electric power facilities. It is a major strategic link bringing in goods from Mombasa port to Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi. It is the only viable road link between eastern Uganda and the capital city, Kampala.

The bridge, completed in the 1954, has already exceeded its normal lifespan and is set to collapse if not worked on. In addition to carrying the road, the dam houses Uganda’s primary and strategic source of hydro-electricity.

The roads authority is planning emergency repairs on the bridge beginning next month, as it prepares to construct the new one. “There have been fears that the bridge might collapse any time, but I want to assure Ugandans that we are monitoring the situation,” Alinange said.

Statistics from the transport ministry indicate that as of December 2008, an average of 9,412 motor vehicles, 1,712 motorcycles, 1,691 bicycles and 669 pedestrians were crossing the bridge daily.

The same report forecasts that in the next 15 years, traffic flow across River Nile at Jinja will increase to 35,898 from the 9,412 recorded in the past two years.After completion of the new bridge, the old one will be retained because it houses hydro-electric power facilities.

http://namnewsnetwork.org/v2/read.php?id=121275

[hakz2007]

WORKERS REJECT PLAN TO RETIRE AT 50 YEARS

KAMPALA, May 23 (NNN-NEW VISION) -- THE National Union of Trade Unions has rejected a proposal by the Ugandan Government to lower the retirement age of civil servants from the 60 to 50 years.

The workers’ leaders are also demanding that the Government involves them in the process. Workers’ MPs also rejected the proposal on Thursday.

At a meeting held at the workers’ body offices in Kampala, the Union leaders resolved that the retirement age be left at 60.

“You cannot force about 30,000 people to retire at a certain age because you are looking for a job for the youth,” the Union chairman, Wilson Owere said.

He added: “If you retire them at 50, what social security protection arrangements do you have for them? The Government needs to plan the process other than apply a fire fighting approach.”

Owere said retiring people at 50 will create more misery, not jobs.

In a letter to the Minister of Public Service a fortnight ago, President Museveni directed that the ministry considers lowering retirement age to 50.

If the proposal became law, over 30,000 civil servants, some of them senior Government officials would be affected.

The Union leaders proposed that the Government first enacts the employment policy. The policy would regulate Government recruitment, retirement process, benefits and methods of payment of benefits or gratuity.

Uganda is the only country in East Africa without an employment policy.

The meeting resolved to raise their concerns to the public service minister. They are also demanding a copy of the president’s letter and cabinet paper that has been prepared on the issues.

The general secretary of the Uganda Government and Allied Workers Union, Mary Kabole, called the proposal ‘an abuse of workers rights’ and called for more discussion.

The retirement age was 55 in the colonial administration, but was raised to 60 after independence in 1962.

http://namnewsnetwork.org/v2/read.php?id=121273

[sseki2010]

thanks hakz

[u.g boy]

Uganda Launches five-year National Development PlanH.E The President Signs

H.E. President Museveni on Monday 19th April 2010, unveiled a Shs54 trillion National Development Plan (NDP) that the government believes will transform Uganda from a predominantly peasant society to a middle income country by 2015.

The NDP replaces the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) and will guide the country’s development programmes over the next five years. The PEAP was launched in 1997 and has been Uganda's guidebook to eradicating poverty for the past 13 years. It expired in June 2008.

Through the NDP, the government will focus on investing in infrastructure development mainly energy, railway, waterway and air transport; human resource development in areas of education skills, health, water and sanitation.

During the period, the proportion of people living below the poverty line is expected to decline from 31 per cent in 2005/6 to about 25 per cent by 2015, slightly below the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target of 28 per cent.

The NDP further addresses structural bottlenecks in the economy in order to accelerate socio-economic transformation for prosperity. Solutions in the NDP aim at creating employment, raising average per capita income levels, improving the labour force distribution and improving Uganda’s competitiveness to levels associated with middle class income countries.

The plan is to be achieved through a quasi-market environment where the private sector will remain the engine of growth and development.

Speaking at the launch, President Museveni said the document, which will be the planning framework, was being launched 40 years after the last one. He said to transform Uganda, power, roads, railway, training of human resources, market, liberal economic policies and promotion of the private sector were necessary.

He explained that Uganda’s economy was doing well at 5.5% growth rate in the 1960s. This changed when the private sector was interrupted by Milton Obote’s nationalisation of enterprises and the expulsion of Asians by Idi Amin in 1972.

He said the Government now collects Shs4000billion, which enables it fund its activities with limited begging and borrowing.

The President said 2 billion barrels of oil had been discovered and an oil refinery would be constructed in western Uganda, and a pipeline from Eldoret to Kampala. He said roads will also be constructed and districts given road construction units.

President Museveni said water transport would be improved on Lake Victoria and railways transport revamped to remove heavy cargo from the roads. Kampala will get a rapid bus system, he said.

He also said a review of the education system was needed so that the human resource is competitive.

Speaking at the launch of the NDP, the Minister of State for Planning in the Finance Ministry, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, said the key thrust of the NDP includes raising the average annual income per person in the country from $506 (about Shs1 million) to $900 (Shs1.8 million) by 2015 and reducing the proportion of people living below the poverty line from 31 per cent to 24.5 per cent.

Other key objectives of the NDP are doubling Uganda’s total revenues from goods and services (Gross Domestic Product) from Shs41.4 trillion to Shs72.1 trillion within the next five years, increasing the share of manufactured products to 30 per cent and increasing to 25 per cent the share of manufactured products in relation to the country’s total GDP.

The total amount of money required to implement the NDP is Shs54 trillion. The expected sources of financing are tax and non-tax revenues, borrowing from capital markets, grants and concessional loans, public-private partnerships, and efficiency gains from utilising good efficiency framework.

President Museveni said since the plan will be financed largely by domestic resources, complemented by public private partnerships, the government needs to examine ways of improving domestic revenue collection. He directed the Finance ministry, along with the National Planning Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority, to undertake a study on inherent weaknesses in tax collection and propose innovative ways of increasing revenue.

[hakz2007]

Originally Posted by sseki2010

thanks hakz

you're welcome

[kihihi]

ABIDJAN, May 26 (Reuters) - Uganda's economy should grow 7.2 percent this year and accelerate to 8 percent in 2011, mostly owing to lively trade within the region, the East African country's finance minister said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of an African Development Bank conference in Abidjan, Finance Minister Syda Bhumba said Uganda's newly discovered oil fields, estimated to hold up to 2 billion barrels, should start producing refined fuel for export in the next four years.

She also said Uganda had weathered the global financial crisis well.

"We are expecting a gradual recovery, but we never went down so much," she said.

East Africa's third largest economy is attracting billions of dollars of foreign investment, especially in the oil sector and government debt markets, after two decades of economic stability.

Bhumba said Uganda's economy had been helped from a move away from traditional raw materials exports like coffee to industrial processing and regional trade, adding that regulation had protected banks from the global crisis.

"When a bank is registering in our country, their assets have to be segregated. That protected us from contagion."

But she said a spike in the value of the U.S. dollar, caused by the euro zone's sovereign debt woes, had hurt Uganda's exports, as the shilling is pegged to the dollar.

Uganda is hoping to see petrodollars flowing soon from concessions on the shores of Lake Albert, in the west.

British oil exploration firms Tullow Oil (TLW.L: Quote) and Heritage Oil (HOIL.L: Quote) have found up to 2 billion barrels of oil in block and Heritage plans to sell its block to Tullow.

"We're looking at 2012 for early production, but that will be mostly for power generation. I can't tell how much," Bhumba said. "Commercial (production) we think will take us about four years because we don't want to export crude."

Though fast-growing, the economy is still heavily dependent on aid, which plugs a third of the budget.

Donors have threatened to cut back if better efforts are not made to tackle corruption in the government, but Bhumba said Uganda had taken steps to do so.

"Even if they did (cut aid), I think I've structured my budget in such a way that I'll manage," she said.

Uganda has had over $1 billion of foreign investment since July of last year, the Uganda Investment Authority says, but some investors are nervous ahead of next year's elections.

Past polls in 2001 and 2006 were marred by violence. Bhumba said polls would be free, fair and well organized.

"I'm surprised if investors are nervous about elections because there are so many coming in," she said.

[kihihi]

KAMPALA, May 27 (Reuters) - The World Bank has offered Uganda $1.97 billion in concessional loans over the next five years to help finance the country's newly-launched National Development Plan (NDP), the World Bank said.

East Africa's third largest economy has been praised for weathering the impact of the global economic slowdown and maintaining a relatively strong growth momentum.

"The International Development Association (IDA) will commit an estimated $1.97 billion to support development projects and programs in Uganda," said the statement which was seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The development plan was launched in April and its implementation will cost an estimated 50 trillion. Uganda shillings.

Uganda had successfully maintained macroeconomic stability and "pursued reforms leading to impressive growth and poverty reduction over the past two decades,", the bank said in the statement.

The country still faces constraints, including high population growth, regional disparities, and weaknesses in governance and service delivery that are hampering its economic transformation efforts, the Washington-based bank added.

Uganda will use the money to expand public infrastructure, train its workforce and improve good governance.

"This coincides with a window of opportunity for Uganda to lay the groundwork for effective and transparent management of its future oil wealth, and improve service delivery," said Kundhavi Kadiresan, World Bank Country Manager for Uganda.

The east African nation discovered commercial hydrocarbon deposits in the Albertine Rift Basin in the west along its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 and reserves are estimated at 2 billion barrels. Commercial production is expected to commence in the last quarter of 2011. (Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Toby Chopra)

[kihihi]

THE U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) will spend 40 percent more buying food in Uganda this year, as it uses low prices to shore up reserves, a senior WFP official has said.

Uganda harvested a bumper maize crop during late 2009 and the first quarter 2010, flooding markets and triggering a plunge in prices.

This year, the Ugandan government said the country's 2009 maize output was estimated at between 1.6 million and 1.8 million tonnes from 1.26 million tonnes in 2008.

"So far by the end of May ... we'll have purchased almost $25 million worth of food commodities in Uganda," WFP Uganda country director, Stanlake Samkange, told Reuters.

"That's a bit ahead of where we were last year and I think by the end of the year we'll be in the $60 to $70 million range, which will be a significant increase over last year's $50 million," he added.

Last year WFP bought 120,000 tonnes maize and beans in Uganda, and it aims to increase its annual local food purchases to $100 million by 2011.

The U.N. food agency provided food to 2 million Ugandans last year, much of it imported, as two decades of civil war in parts of the country combined with droughts, to affect harvests. [ID:nL1615577]

But for the last five years, the WFP has been increasing local food purchases, partly to boost farmers' livelihoods.

In 2009, the WFP spent $15 million upgrading Uganda's warehousing infrastructure as it anticipated that lower maize prices would work in their favour for both value and volume, WFP officials said.

WFP has been paying an estimated $210 for a tonne of maize in 2010, from last year's average of $380, Samkange said.

WFP prices are usually slightly higher than the prevailing market rates, as it seeks to improve farmers' living conditions.

Although the country's grain production surged last year, lack of processing and storage facilities limits the amount Uganda can sell to top-quality buyers like WFP and others on the international market.

Uganda has only seven certified warehouses with a storage capacity of an estimated 30,000 metric tonnes per year, according to the Uganda Commodities Exchange (UCE).

[desert burner]

[kihihi]

A 14-kilometre by-pass will be constructed in Mbarara to divert heavy and commercial vehicles from passing through the town, reports Aidah Nanyonjo. Dan Alinange, the roads agency, UNRA, spokesman, said the road would be built under the Mbarara-Katuna road reconstruction programme.

It will be funded by the European Union.

The by-pass will include a bridge, and will start from the Coca-Cola plant on Masaka Road.

It will pass through Rwebishuri, Nkokonjeru and join Kabale Road at Katatumba Resort, about five kilometres from the town centre.

The by-pass falls under the Northern Corridor route which gives Uganda vital access to the sea and connects the country to the Great Lakes region and Southern Sudan.

Alinange revealed that the pre-qualification process for firms that will work on the project had already started.

Work starts in October.

A few weeks ago, the Government signed a multi-billion shilling financing agreement with the European Union for the project.

The Government will contribute 45m euros (about sh124b). Over 122m euros (about sh335b) will come from the EU.

This will make the biggest project in Uganda to be funded by the

[kihihi]

Uganda could see its first nuclear power station as early as 2018, as the country drifts farther from donor influence in an effort to assert more control over strategic sectors of its economy.


But development partners aside, early indications are that proponents of the nuclear option still have to bridge the wide gulf that separates them from the school of thought that placed priority on hydro generation.

The East African has learnt that emerging thinking at the highest levels in the Ugandan government lays the blame for the country’s current energy woes on flawed policies that were heavily influenced by a World Bank philosophy that led to piecemeal investment in the energy sector.

This allowed energy deficits to reach crisis proportions, forcing the country into expensive stopgap measures that are having a ripple effect as the costing of new power projects is based on current tariffs.

“There has been an internal shift in the government approach to energy policy, in the direction of more independence from our friends in Bretton Woods,” a source at the National Planning Authority (NPA) told The EastAfrican.

“This is because there is a realisation that energy is a catalyst for development, and the conservative approach dictated by some of our development partners in the past, has not quite worked for the country,” he added.

Apparently, while Uganda favours immediate investment in generation capacity to meet present and future demand for electricity, multilateral lenders prefer a phased approach informed by demand forecasts.

Among solutions being proposed is a shift to nuclear energy in the near term, with 2018 being proposed as a likely date when Uganda should have a nuclear power station operational.

“Even though we have a hydro potential in excess of 4,000MW along the river Nile, we cannot avoid nuclear energy because there are environmental limits to how much hydro you can get out of the river,” the NPA source observed.

[BUTEMBO21]

Do you have Uranium?

[kihihi]

Originally Posted by BUTEMBO21

Do you have Uranium?

Yes we have it was recently discovered but mining has not yet started.

[egypt69]

What about the Nile? Oh wait.....

But seriously, what about solar, wind power? Nuclear power is good, but very expensive and hard to maintian.

[BUTEMBO21]

Originally Posted by kihihi

Yes we have it was recently discovered but mining has not yet started.

Great, even tough i don'tlike Mu7.

But your 80% + Rural, why Nuke Energy?

[kihihi]

Originally Posted by BUTEMBO21

Great, even tough i don'tlike Mu7.

But your 80% + Rural, why Nuke Energy?

Our hydro power potential is only 4000MW, the government is planning to increase power generation to over 10,000MW by end of decade from 500MW right now we therefore need to have other alternatives. Solar power technology is not advanced enough to meet our needs.
Although the nuclear power could delay because u see the trouble Iran is facing to develop nuclear power how do u think they will react to an African country.