speculators find haven in uganda mining industry!

Oil Companies in Uganda want a National Resource Supply Centre

Tullow oil moving to deliver local content

Tullow oil moving to deliver local content

Gaining from Ugandas' Oil and Gas!

Child labor in Uganda-By Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye 2010

2013 Oil , Gas and Minerals Course B successfully handled

The Revenue Watch Institute RWI, in collaboration with the African Center for Media excellence ACME, has successfully  completed  course B on Oil, Gas and Minerals for Uganda and Tanzania  journalists. The ten day course commenced on the 3rd of December 2013 with the journalists undertaking the theoretical  trainings from within their respective countries but joined for filed work in Uganda Albertine oil  rich region for three days.

Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye interviewing rig engineers at one of Tullow Oil Wells

 Under the stewardship of the African Center for Media Excellence in Kampala, the Uganda journalists were aggressively trained on key  topics that determine the sector discipline.
Topical papers were presented by different experts during interactive sessions were the journalist had all the time to seek clarifications on any ambiguities  that arise from speculations with  in the sector activities.
Content Papers were presented and discussions made  on Local content, the Ugandan refinery and pipeline, Revenue management,environmental  and social sensitivity, taxation, facts and figures, compesation and land acquisition  among several other relevant areas.
 Bernard Tabaire  the Director of Programes  at the ACME led the Uganda team and guided the field work tour,

Journalists from Uganda and Tanzania at the Total Camp in Nwoya

A number of issues emerged during the field trip in Nwoya and Hoima  districts were physical sector activities take place. Such ideas combined with presentation tips triggered anxiety among the trainees to follow up different News pieces with the support of the News grant from ACME.

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Oil rig at Tullow Well in Nwoya

Course A was held in Tanzania  mid this year and it combined  three groups of journalist trainees from Uganda , Tanzania and Ghana.
 The trained journalist will be followed up through a mentor-ship program with different trainers.

technology for producing electricity, drinking water and heat launched

The market leader in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, inaugurated the MiCROSOL project aims to develop a single, modular standard technology for producing electricity, drinking water and heat simultaneously, primarily to benefit micro-industries located in rural areas of countries with high levels of sunshine, especially in Africa.

MiCROSOL is based on the principle of co-generation of electricity and heat, applying a new approach to a technology that is already widespread – solar thermodynamics. The solution focuses its constraints on the design of thermal storage that only uses environmentally-friendly products.

 Its purpose is to simultaneously meet three basic needs regularly expressed by these people: Access to electricity that is reliable, efficient and inexpensive; Clean drinking water that is produced economically and consistently; and Heat generation that is continuous and environmentally sound.

 Microsol can help micro-producers in the food, textile and paper industries with processing their raw materials by automating some of their processes (e.g. drying, washing, pasteurization, etc.). In the tertiary sector, Microsol can help the tourist industry by providing the energy needed for many premium services: electricity for HVAC, refrigeration or security; heat for hot water, laundry or heating; water for drinking or cooking.

Located in a rural village, Microsol can also meet some or all of the production needs of local residents: water supply, electrification of communal areas, and so forth.

A Microsol solution produces 50 MWh/year of electricit, 1,000 m3/year of drinking water, and around 800 MWh/year of thermal energy. The solution has an expected life of at least 20 years.

"That technology can help Africa's poorest countries", said Pradeep Monga, Director of the Energy & Climate Change Branch of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), while attending the inauguration of Microsol solution.

For the environment, Microsol is a green solution that guarantees zero greenhouse gas emissions, reduced deforestation and health problems owing to the clean production of heat and electricity. Also, Microsol use easily recyclable steel and aluminum components.

Gilles Vermot Desroches, Senior Vice-President, Sustainability, Schneider Electric, announced: “All countries with high levels of sunshine are potential targets for marketing Microsol. However, because of its infrastructure needs, geographical location and economic models, Schneider Electric and its partners decided to focus their efforts on Africa".

After market research, the consortium led by Schneider Electric chose Kenya as pilot country for the industrialization and commercialization of Microsol. Kenya meets a set of favorable conditions for the establishment and development of this solution.

The consortium plans to start the commercialization phase in 2015.

NSSF unveils New real estate investment

The National Social Security Fund has unveiled the $ 400M investment project in housing and multipurpose developments in Lubowa. The project is expected to activate the fund’s property that has been redundant especially land. The housing project is also probable to boost the fund’s performance and expected to increase the members’ interest gains to 20% upon completion.

The real estate project is the first one of it’s kind that the National Social Security Fund is under-taking. It is aimed at offsetting utilization of the fund’s available land for profit and interest fetching investments to increase performance in real estate.

The 565 acres of land in Lubowa was bought ten years back in 2003 at 50 million shillings per acre. The land will therefore be developed into a housing estate under the theme live, work and play. The land which is currently under cultivation will be developed into a self-sustaining and multi-purpose area. It will have 2741 housing units of different types, service centers, public space and security among others.

The project was initiated in 2012 with the procurement processes by SBI international holdings the design consultants. The real project will begin in January 2014 with a selection of contractors which will be open for competition. The first phase will involve construction of 360 houses, rental facilities, initial infrastructure, schooling facilities and security services. When finished, the initial investments will be offset to sustain further contractions in later phases.              

According to Richard Byarugaba the fund managing director, the project will transform lives in terms of services and employment. The fund contributors will have priority in acquisition of property upon completion of estate development.

The project is expected to be mixed given the diversity of developments that range from schools, residential, commercial and recreation centers. It is projected that if well developed the project will fetch the fund an interest return of approximately 20%.

Uganda makes progress in extractive industry management

Now that Uganda has moved to the development stage of oil and gas life span besides several artisan mineral activities, it is important that management frameworks are adopted to ensure effective value is attained from the resources. The extractive resources are often a blessing with expertise and good management from the host country but it’s likely to turn into a curse with lack of accountability and transparency.

Government has therefore launched the country energy Frame work Program for nuclear energy a reference for the medium-term planning of technical cooperation that identifies priority areas where the transfer of nuclear technology and technical cooperation resources will be directed to support national development goals.  According to Uganda’s’ prime minister Patrick Ammama Mbabazi, the frame work comes at a time when Uganda has discovered vast   deposits of minerals, gas and oil, Uranium as well.

The minister of energy and Mineral Development Engineer Irene Munloni says plans are complete to come up with a national oil company that acts as the agency in the extractive resource negotiations and deals on behalf of the people. Oil companies are the negotiating camps for the extractive resource countries with international oil companies. Upon incorporation, Uganda will have its extractive resource deals clearly streamlined to guide accountability and transparency.

The Prime Minister amama mbabazi has identified land acquisition as one of the major huddles frustrating development of the extractive industry. Compensations of those that own the land under which the extractive resources lie is too fragile that agreements are always abused by the land owners and the extractive resource contractors. It is therefore important to come up with clear regulations to determine the manner in which land owners and extractive resource contractors share the resource profits. This has derails efforts to develop the necessary infrastructure to support the extractive industry development.

Uganda like several other countries in Africa has discovered oil, gas  and several other minerals amidst lack of expertise and supportive infrastructural development. It is therefore important for Uganda to derive lessons from other countries where the extractive resources have been developed for long. This is to guide the resource life span with limited negative effects that are often associated with resource rich countries.

The passive income earners....

Until one qualifies from an active income earner to passive income earner when people and social capital is more important, then crossing to middle income is still a long distance. The Investment clubs Association of Uganda is promoting passive income earning through professional savings groups where more than five people come together to pool resources for short term and long term financing. The groups operate on good leadership, vision, a good team, the product to run, sustainable cash flows legal and structural systems to promote efficient operations.

Mobilizing capital finance for short and long term investment is still a big challenge in Uganda since Uganda’s culture of saving is still so faint. Very few Uganda companies can ably list on the Uganda stock exchange for the obvious reasons that corporate governance, transparency and accountability are key ingredients in accessing financing from the stock markets but so rear among indignant companies.

Therefore, coming up with investment clubs would close the gaps indentified in Uganda’s financing sector. Capital Markets Authority together with other stakeholders formed the investment clubs association of Uganda to help build a strategy to mobilize medium and long term financing   as well as wealth creation.

 Through the Investment Clubs Association Uganda, a two year investment strategy that stretches from this year to 2015 will guide build capacities for sustainable access to capital finance.

 Ann Muhangi the communication and investor education Manager at capital markets authority says, in the two year strategy, developing capacities   through skills acquisition and training will take centre stage.

According to the ministry of finance, at least one of every four Ugandans is a member of the investment club but with no serious positive impact realized at the ground. Therefore the minister of finance and economic development Mariah Kiwanuka says government through her ministry   is coming up with a number of supportive initiatives to sustain such clubs.

 The proposed Legal reforms in the financial institutions Act give hope to a wide spectrum of access to long term and medium-term financing. The Islamic baking where the lender does not charge interest but acquire stake in the business is one of such proposed reforms. The proposed reforms also legalize mobile money transactions which guarantee safety like any other banking system as well as growth of cooperatives, village savings and agency banking. These if passed will widen opportunities to access capital finance.

 The minster emphasized government efforts to reduce the cost of doing business for investors  which in the long run improves returns on investment hence improvement from active income earners to passive earners.

The Uganda Capital Markets Authority also wants government to apportion support in form of good policy framework and regulatory regime to help build a sustainable investment foundation.

UGANDA PUBLIC FUNDS CONTROL

30TH-10-2013
In efforts to improve accountability and transparency in government agencies as and ministries, government has adopted a number of reforms and policies to that effect. Quarterly reports for government releases are now made public to help ensure effective usage of the funds for the intended purposes. Therefore government has released 5.72 trillion Uganda shillings for this quarter equivalent to 47% of the approved national budget for this financial year.

The 5.07 trillion shillings is a quarterly release equivalent to 47% of the government’s approved budget for this financial year. This excludes non-resource taxes and external financing and serves for the quarter that begun in July to December this year. This is to cover plans in the different ministries agencies, referral hospitals, missions abroad, total center votes and local governments. The funding will further be released in form of capitation grants to schools in line with the school term calendar and enhancement of the requested teacher’s salaries.

To increase budget transparency and ensure appropriate budget expenditure, the ministry will require accounting officers in the different ministries, departments and agencies to submit progress and accountability reports by the 15^th day of every month.

There is going to be a single treasury single account for all Ministries, Departments and Agencies with an aim to obtain an aggregate position of government cash balances for efficient control and motoring of public funds. Under this system, funds will be availed within the approved cash limits for only those items for which payment is approved by the accounting officer. Unspent balances will be returned back to the account and availed for the next working day.

These initiatives follow the recent mismanagement of public funds by government officials. Most of the efforts are to strengthen internal controls on public fund management