Ugandans in diaspora asked to invest home

Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) boss, Dr. Maggie Kigozi

 

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By John Agaba

THE Ugandan Diaspora community has been challenged to invest ‘home’, with tourism, oil and gas, and agriculture earmarked as some of the sectors they can inject their money.


Former Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) boss, Dr. Maggie Kigozi, asked the Ugandan Diaspora to invest in the country’s strategic development areas to ensure sector growth and sustainability of the economy.

“Rather than send handouts to relatives every end of month, start something for them, a project, so they don’t have to depend on you all the time,” Kigozi said at a Ugandans-in-the-diaspora breakfast meeting at the Kampala Serena Hotel on Monday.

John Musajjakawa, a senior investment executive at UIA, challenged the Ugandan diaspora to seize the opportunities especially in the sectors of Agriculture, Industry, Infrastructure and Information and Commutations Technology (ICT) that government is prioritizing.

“There are a lot of opportunities you can tap into. And we need you to utilize them,” he said.

The same message was echoed by Amos Wekesa of the Great Lakes Safaris, who described the huge potential in tourism that the Ugandan diaspora can take advantage of.

According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, remittances into Uganda from the Ugandan diaspora (as a source of foreign exchange as well as resources for consumption and investment) have grown steadily in recent years.

In 1998 remittances were estimated at US$165 million, equivalent to 2.6 percent of GDP. In 2012, this had risen to US$910 million, equivalent to 4.3 percent of GDP that year.

The average remittances per year between 2008 and 2012 amounted to about US$ 800 million, which exceeds official aid which averaged US$ 538 million but equivalent to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country.

At the Biennial Ambassadors’ Conference in Kampala early this year, Governor Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile, described that remittances from Ugandan diaspora have been a more stable source of capital than private capital.

“The major driver of Uganda’s economic growth has been private sector gross fixed capital formation, which as a percentage of GDP rose steadily from 5.2 percent in 1988 to 18.3 percent in 2008 before declining to 15.8 percent in 2012.

“Ugandan Diaspora, both directly and indirectly contributed to this surge in private sector investment and therefore economic growth,” Mutebile said.

But the Ugandan diaspora can do more. Much as the remittances have had a direct impact on poverty reduction because they flow directly to households, the remittances have not played a major role beyond supporting the household welfare, Mutebile said.

At the function organized by Prestige Pine Village, a real estate development company, the stakeholders discussed how the Ugandan diaspora can contribute more.

“The Ugandan diaspora community have the potential to invest in its own right, but also has the knowledge, expertise and experience that could be deployed in enabling private sector investment,” Musajjakawa said.

The government also interested the Ugandan diaspora to invest in the Uganda Securities Exchange, with options in bonds and bills.