By Joshua Nahamya
Mbarara
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Dr. Ramathan Ggoobi, has encouraged government agencies and ministries to embrace technology to track corruption tendencies.
Dr. Ggoobi said this on Wednesday while closing a two-day national investment symposium held at Kakyeka stadium in Mbarara City.
He says automating government processes is meant to track the taxpayers’ money and ensure that the money collected is put to proper use.
“Beginning next year rationalization of government is going to take shape because we want to emphasize the efficiency of government,” says Ggoobi
“When you pay tax, where is it going? The revenue we collect, what is it doing? So, the government took a decision to rationalise itself to improve on the way the government does business, the results which the government produces and how it accounts for the resources which you give us”. He added
In this regard, Dr. Ggoobi says his docket is designing an e-procurement system to reduce inefficiencies in government offices.
“We are working on E-Government procurement modernity and by next year about 50 of the central government ministries, departments and agencies are going to be procured online to reduce inefficiencies we see in government” the PS emphasized
Ggoobi says the modernity being fine-tuned to be implemented in 2023 will procure in the same way WhatsApp groups do it on social media.
“With a WhatsApp group transparency, if we could get its mirror image in our procurement that the firms which are bidding for government projects can be seen on a computer and the business, they are doing instead of going in small rooms to meet certain people where they give bribes, we are likely to reduce on corruption tendencies” the PS explained
Dr. Ggoobi also says the ministry will start e-monitoring of schools and health centers across the country to protect the government drugs from being stolen.
“We have also developed a platform to implement the e-monitoring of schools and health centers which some people have not been doing effectively of inspecting and monitoring teachers.
“If we have children in the school and we have a number of teachers, how are they being monitored to ensure that they offer the service they are paid to offer. So, we are introducing a system which is going to be monitoring the learners as well as the teachers and also monitoring the health centres across the country to ensure that medicine the drugs and other equipment which government buys are not stolen”
Dr. Ggoobi is also optimistic that the country’s GDP lost by 3% during the covid19 pandemic since 2020 will recover by the year 2023/24 through different stimulus packages the government is committed to providing.
“We are implementing a stimulus package to boost aggregate demand and also support businesses to restart and recover. A total of 260 billion have been deployed through Emyooga as well as 77billion through SACCOs targeting the financially excluded vulnerable groups and active poor through microfinance support centre”. He said
“We have lost nearly 3% of GDP growth in each of the past two years due to the Covid19 pandemic which is projected to grow at 3.8% by June this year. And then the economy is destined to recover its free pandemic growth of above 6% beginning 2023/24” the PS adds
Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho aka Salim Saleh, the Chief Coordinator of Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) challenged district commercial officers and agricultural officers including his army officers in OWC to always focus on people’s demands rather than telling stories in their areas.
“that’s what I was telling the organizers first to provoke the locals to come up with their demands. But now you can tell that the effective demand is zero” Gen Saleh added
He furiously warned the national symposium organizers never to invite him again when they don’t have to raise people’s demands.
“Organizers I am happy that you have persisted with these symposiums but this will be the last symposium I will go to where there is no demand because we went to Arua and leaders came with dreams then in Guru it was just imaginations now I have come to Mbarara and I am listening to stories” the bush war army officer emphasized
Akandwanaho further challenged the people of Ankole to focus on industrialization to address unemployment in the region rather than getting concentrated in subsistence farming.
“The population of Ankole is 4.2million people and they are settled on land equivalent to 6000 square miles which is not expanding yet the population is expanding. So, if you don’t go into labour intensive activities and manufacturing people will have no jobs” Akandwanaho explained
Prof Elijah Mushemeza, MP Sheema North constituency also challenged the government to focus on local industries and processors to empower the forthcoming parish development model (PDM) program.
“With this mobilization we are doing in parish model, if we are not careful, People are going to surprise us with commodities and we shall have no market but if they are processed, they can be kept for some time,” Mushemeza said
“Ankole is at a stage where there is serious production but with little processing and in our opinion, we require more than four banana processing plants” he added
The Uganda Investment Symposium concept was launched in 2019 with an inaugural symposium held in the West Nile region and a subsequent one held in the Rwenzori sub-region.
This year’s national symposium was organized by Uganda Development Bank Limited (UDBL) in partnership with Operation Wealth Creation (OWC).
