The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, has tasked the National Planning Authority (NPA) to give industrialisation first priority in the National Development Plan III.
In a meeting with NPA officials in her boardroom, Kadaga said the National Resistance Movement Party campaign was hinged on industrialisation, which she said has to be fulfilled.
“Under the NDPII, you omitted industrialisation…our theme for the last elections was industrialisation for job creation…when you are doing the review of NDPIII, you must have some room for industrialisation,” said Kadaga.
Kadaga said her frustration with the slow paced industrialisation plan was fuelled by a visit to Kapeeka Industrial Park in Luweero District.
Kadaga said she was impressed by the progress made, but later learnt that the investor did almost everything unaided by government.
“I was concerned because I went to Kapeeka Industrial Park and I saw the roads and thanked government…but when I asked the investor, he said he does that himself,” said Kadaga.
NPA’s Executive Director, Dr Joseph Muvawala, acknowledged the challenges, saying the authority is mooting a robust industrialisation plan to grow the economy.
“We have not performed very well in delivering the industrial progress…we have done some work in lowering the cost of production, it is not low, but there is some progress,” said Kadaga.
Muvawala said value addition in agriculture should inspire industrialisation, which will in turn create more jobs and end the export of unprocessed or semi processed raw materials.
Industrialists, said Muvawala, are complaining about the lack of linkage between the current training and market needs.
He said there’s need for the curriculum to be calibrated to fill skilling gaps and revive the path to industrial development.
With Shs6.4 trillion shillings forked out of the 2019/202 Financial Year budget to finance infrastructure, government, said Finance State Minister David Bahati last week, is eager to put into place the enablers to industrialisation.
Whereas government has anchored the three previous national budgets on industrialisation, the to-do list for the achievement of the ambitious plans remains long.
Muvawala criticised plans by government to convert a number of technical institutions into universities, saying such moves are responsible for the snail speed of industrial progress.
He rooted for a moratorium on the creation of universities from what was originally technical colleges like the current Kyambogo University.
In its report on the National Budget Estimates, the Committee on Budget noted that alignment of government expenditure with the NDPII has been unsatisfactory, and that only the budget of Financial Year 2019/2020 scores at least 60 per cent alignment.
