OUR POLICIES ON LAND ACQUISITION, CORRUPTION ARE MAJOR IMPEDEMENTS-SPA MUTYABULE
By John Okello Lapok
The NRM last week concluded its much-publicized NRM chapter Canada Symposium. The symposium was attended by notables including Rukia Nadakama [3rd deputy premier], Presidency minister Milly Babirye Babalanda, Senior Presidential Advisor on Busoga/Poverty alleviation Florence Mutyabule, Lands minister Judith Nabakooba, Amb. Joy Ruth Acheng and Amb. Abbey Walusimbi among others.
Held under the theme ‘Dialogue, Unity and a Prosperous Diaspora’, the meeting sought to grant an opportunity to participants to network, exchange ideas and expertise among others.
According to SPA Mutyabule, during her side meetings with potential investors in Canada, it revealed a lot which she says needs to be addressed if the Uganda is to convince Canadians to invest here.
To begin with, investors in Canada prefer going to other countries like United States on grounds that they fear the return on investment in Uganda since acquisition of land is not easy. This, according to them is worsened by corruption which involves paying heavy kickbacks.
“Therefore, an investor tells you he will not be sure of how much profit will be realized if he invests in Uganda compared to other countries where they say policies protect investors and everything is straight forward and no kitu kidogo” she says.
Mutyabule added that Canada investors prefer to do business with government directly and want to invest in mainly social services. This is because their payments are guaranteed.
“But investing business to business, they say they are not sure because of the investment policies where their interests are not guaranteed. Profits are not predictable in Uganda because of the many gymnastics that go with investment” she explained.
She however, recommended that Uganda needs to make efforts to sweet-talk Indians and Ethiopians living in Canada to interest them in investing here.
“These people want to invest in places that offer security of their property and Uganda is secure for investors to do their business. This is an area our teams in Canada can explore if we are to get investors to bring money here. They are many Indians and Ethiopians doing investments in Canada” she said.
Mutyabule has been pivotal to Gen. Museveni especially in sourcing for potential investors from international meetings. One such a big investor she brought is Prof. Elitigan from UAE who wants to invest in Uganda’s dairy production. He wants to set up a state of the art farm, dairy project and animal feed’s factory in Busoga area. Already the Uganda Investment Authority is making final stages of granting an investment license to the mogul on recommendation/sourcing by Mutyabule who got him from a UAE conference. President Museveni funded her trip to UAE and so, the Canada conference.
