By Mulengera Reporters
A growing number of business-minded senior cadres of the President and the NRM are becoming disillusioned with failure to promptly access the financial support they require from the Patricia Ojangole-led UDB, to continue coping in the private sector.
Owned and funded by the GoU, using the taxpayer’s money, Uganda Development Bank (UDB) is charged with availing long term development finance to enable Ugandan private sector players contribute to the realization of President Museveni’s 10-fold growth strategy ($500bn GDP size by 2040).
They are into business projects that can enhance tourism receipts, job creation, foreign exchange earnings and sometimes export volumes for the country. These are projects that the commercial banks (charging interest rate of 22%) ordinarily cannot viably finance hence the decision to rely on UDB whose interest rate is just 12%.
For instance, as Uganda prepares for AFCON 2027, there is need for high class hotel, accommodation and recreation facilities not only in Kampala but in other upcountry cities like Hoima where hundreds of billions were sunk by the GoU to put in place a stadium whose operationalization will also leverage the existence of Kabaale International Airport.
There are a group of private sector players who the President is counting on to ensure that the required accommodation standards are in place for the comfort of the international guests who will be flocking Hoima for the AFCON games come 2027.
Dr. Kabagambe Kaliisa, one of the leading private investors in Bunyoro sub region, is one of them. He was cleared to get financial assistance (via long term financing) from UDB, to enable him finalize a few upgrade-related things on his AFCON recreational facilities, but the funding has been unduly delayed due to curious bureaucratic delays inside UDB.
Not only is Kaliisa a former apex level civil servant in the NRM government but he is one of the biggest Museveni supporters in Bunyoro sub region. His business qualifies for the funding but State House is wondering why the decision makers inside UDB are still dragging their feet on finalizing his facility.
The other big-name Museveni cadre whose funding is being controversially delayed is Gen Leopold Kyanda who recently retired from the active military service. He too is carrying our upgrades at his huge hotel recreation facility to increase Uganda’s suitability to hold AFCON games in the Hoima City come 2027. There are growing concerns among some managers at UDB that his funding facility, for which his business fully qualifies, has been delayed yet time is of essence as the country counts down to AFCON 2027.
All this costly frustration is happening at a time when another big name Ugandan businessman, Ben Kavuya who mostly operates in Kampala as a player in both finance and pharmaceutical manufacturing, is still licking his wounds after being maltreated by authorities at UDB.
There is anger among the high level business community members, with influence in the Museveni universe, that Kavuya was frustrated for a whole two years while chasing for a long-term financing loan of Shs10bn and all this was happening after people at UDB took his Shs100m designated as loan appraisal fees and proceeded to make him wait for a whole two years.
If Kaliisa and Kyanda are going to be subjected to similar bureaucracy, there are fears the Hoima-based AFCON hotel facilities may never be delivered in time and to the very highest levels of efficiency the President desires to see.
Having become victims of the perceived inefficiencies at UDB, some of these well connected businessmen are desperately looking forward to having audience with the President to share with him greater details regarding how frustrating their respective UDB experiences have been. Some of the things they are being required to have in place are turning out to be very prohibiting as opposed to being business-enabling. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
