“Uganda needs brick and mortar resource-based and light technology industrialisation to create massive jobs that will see us importing manpower in a period of five years or less” Ben Kahunga Matsiko
In the case of Uganda, this is how the legislation will create jobs…
The latest we have from Parliament, inter alia, is Hon Paul Mwiru (Jinja Municipality East), seeking leave to prepare a private member’s Bill. The honorable is right. Legislation can and must be used to create jobs. And the world over, legislatures do use their power to create jobs for their citizens.
One caveat though. The central focus of Hon Mwiru’s proposed Bill is to ensure ‘equal distribution of jobs according to regions of Uganda, a veiled euphemism for our Achilles heel (tribal balance). This is where he gets it wrong as a legislator but worse, sends out the wrong signals among Ugandans, namely that jobs are politically and regionally allocated. Wrong move, Hon Mwiru. Here is the correct way. (And I will send no invoice. Just a patriotic duty to my motherland!).
The basics first: only industrialisation will create jobs for Ugandans. And given our level of development, we are still at the first and second levels of the Industrial Revolution.
Pockets of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (where we only partake as consumers, not productive participants) should not deceive us. Uganda needs brick and mortar resource-based and light technology industrialisation to create massive jobs that will see us importing manpower in a period of five years or less.
The starting point for legislating against unemployment is seeking amendments to the UDC Act to transform it into the parastatal that it was founded to be, not an agency of the revived one we have. This, backed by the Private-Public Partnership Act and related legislation, will see UDC entering into key sectors of the economy especially those at the resource-base level, which have the highest potential of job creation. Global institutional investors wakina IFC (International Finance Corporation), CDC (Commonwealth Development Corporation (or its successor?), KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, the German Development Bank), Itochu Corporation of Japan, JICA of Japan, IFAD, even private ones wakina Nestlé, Delmonte, Colruyt, will be better attracted to invest through solid holding companies like UDC.
Related to this is the financing, either directly through UDB (one school argues that the current Covid-19 economic stimulus funds in UDB for micro-lending would have a better value-chain impact if channeled to UDC for direct investment in resource-based industrialisation for import substitution and export promotion).
The next low-hanging fruit is the Antitstrust Law or better simplified as the Competition Act. This actually is the most egalitarian distributor of jobs. What it does is this: prevents manufacturers from retailing their own products. With established distribution chains from the factory to regional distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, a web of jobs is created along the chain.
The Ugandan laissez-faire situation has bizarre practices where manufacturers run kiosks. A benchmarking visit to Kenya by the Parliamentary Committee on the National Economy, NPA, UDC, UIA, will be worth the per diem n’ebigenderako.
After the UDC repositioning, look up the Counterfeits Bill. The last time I checked, Parliament was yet to pass this. Perhaps Hon Mwiru can propose an amendment to expand the definition of counterfeit to include used and discarded products: apparel (including used underwear) and general textiles, electricals, electronics, machinery, tools, leather, and the entire garbage-material heap that we import in their millions rendering us a literal dumping ground.
How many jobs shall we create if we decide to ban all counterfeits and used articles? A mundane case: footwear. We only need to have a planned phased ban of used and fake footwear and the next day UIA will not have enough space to host the number of prospective investors seeking licenses to go into footwear manufacturing.
A final low-hanging fruit for Hon Mwiru is a Bill creating a specific regulatory and quality agency for foods and beverages. UNBS is overstretched.
Quality issues explain our high-end supermarkets stocking fruits and vegetables from South Africa and meat products from Belgium.
And the EAC level, Hon Mwiru, kindly look into the archives and retrieve the Kampala Agreement of 1975. This stipulates equitable and even distribution of industrial development across the old EAC. The new EAC can pick a lesson or two.
Ben Kahunga Matsiko
Follow me…
Email: isherugaba@gmail.com
Google: http://Ben Kahunga Matsiko
Blog:https://kanyonza.blogspot.com/
Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/images/id-6485824/
