During the Presidential Investors Round Table (PIRT) 5 meeting held last week at Statehouse Entebbe, the President, H.E Yoweri Museveni pronounced himself on the need to remove VAT taxation on tourism because it is among Uganda’s exports that do not attract such taxation. The PIRT, a high level interaction between private sector and public sector chaired by H.E the President, was launched by H.E. the President in August 2015 and is addressing interventions in Tourism; Competitiveness; Minerals; and Oil, Gas and Energy. This interactive platform of both local and international investors and Government Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) is coordinated by the Office of the Prime Minister with Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) as Secretariat.
The PIRT Chairmen and Technical Working group members have held several consultative meetings with Ministries and Government Agencies in the four thematic sectors that are of focus this time round. Issues for intervention evolved around domestic participation in projects and the fast tracking of the PPDA law regarding local content, the increase of government participation in strategic sectors like generation of electricity from Uranium, the revival of the National Airline, Uganda’s brand management, the closing of skills gaps across all sectors, fast tracking the budgeting and availability of funds and promotion for all infrastructure projects in the Albertine region if Uganda is to produce in the first oil in 2020 and improvement in government’s service delivery, among others. Also cited, was the weakness of UIA in intervening in investment implementation problems. The solution was seen in the fast tracking of the enactment of the Investment Bill, which is under amendment and structured to enable UIA to expand its mandate to implement the One Stop Centre for investors, following H.E the President’s directive that UIA be the One Stop Centre for investors.
Mr. George Jalobo-Piwang, Chairman UIA Board’s Investment Promotion and Public Relations Committee, represented the Board Chairman and assured the meeting that the overhaul H.E the President talked about regarding UIA is taking place. He reiterated UIA’s ambitious target of creating one million jobs by 2021. He took the opportunity to inform the meeting about UIA’s new Vision and the targeted sectors i.e. “Uganda: profitable for investment, business and innovative” and Agriculture/Agribusiness & Agro-processing; Tourism; Minerals/Oil &Gas; and Science, Technology & Innovations (STI) including ICT, respectively. He also informed them that the Strategic Plan is prioritizing development of a robust Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector.
Read more about the Presidential Investors Round Table
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