The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
It takes only 4 hours now to register a business
On average, it takes 4 hours to register a business if one has all the required documents, compared to 33 days about 2 years ago. Land records are being ditigised following the roll-out of the Land Information System (LIS) by the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, and to date, nine ministry zonal offices are operational bringing services nearer to the people.
Under Matching Grant Facility, 418 enterprises have benefitted from the project and 50% of these are female owned. Results are starting to manifest through improved performance of enterprises in terms of, increased productivity, income and employment as well as a catalysed access to markets.
In tourism, the World Bank’s interventions have been targeted at increasing the supply of trained tourism workforce capable of delivering competitive hospitality services. Some of the support is towards revamping curricula and training facilities at the Uganda Hotel and Tourism Institute to improve training for the pool of local staff for the hospitality, leisure, and tourism industries. A publicity campaign in key source markets has had £1.2 million worth of media coverage in the UK market, Euro 2 million in other markets, and reached an audience of 991 million in North America.
With the new Private Sector Window under IDA18, IFC’s Advisory Services project preparation and other capacity-building activities will be harnessed to ensure that companies are in good shape to increase their chances of qualifying for funding.
Speaking on behalf of Government of Uganda, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Secretary to the Treasury, Keith Muhakanizi, recognised the role of the Private Sector in driving development, and noted that there is need to join hands with Government to finance public investments, including infrastructure which is critical to spur economic growth and boost shared prosperity. He commended the World Bank Group for its continued support to the Government of Uganda.
The World Bank Group’s current investment portfolio in Uganda is primarily financed from the International Development Association (IDA), which provides interest free “credits” and grants on concessional terms, attracting only an administrative service charge of 0.75% on the disbursed credit amount. Loan repayments are stretched over 38 years, including a six-year grace period.
As of September 2017, the Bank’s portfolio stood at $2.6 billion (IDA credits and grants) in net commitment for national and regional operations. Around two thirds is supporting sustainable development, including 46% to infrastructure development (energy, roads, urban, and ICT), followed by agriculture (14%), and water (7%). Close to 30% is supporting human development (health 11%, education 9%, and social protection 7%); and the private sector and trade (5%).
