Government willing to fund private businesses - Kasaija

Finance minister Matia Kasaija

What you need to know:

  • Last Friday, PSFU inaugurated a 19-member board led by city businessman Patrick Bitature.
  • Mr Gideon Badagawa, the executive director PSFU, said the new board is composed of distinguished businesspeople in the country who have tested the waters in good and tough times.

Kampala. Finance minister Matia Kasaija has urged the private sector and Ugandans to design economically viable proposals and ideas which government can fund to do business for both to earn.
While inaugurating the new board for the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda (PSFU) last week, Mr Kasaija said there is currently little money in circulation because a huge chunk of the budget which government injected into the road sector is going to foreign companies working on projects because no Ugandan company is doing it.

“I am spending Shs3.6 trillion to develop roads and I need another $564 million for oil roads. It pains me that not a single Ugandan company is doing the roads; no wonder there is shortage of money in circulation,” he said, adding that when he pays them, the money is repatriated to home countries and the little that remains is used to pay project drivers, shamba boys and other support staff.
He said money is not a problem to government but the most important thing is an economically viable idea which can be funded.
“I cannot pay out money when I do not know what it is bringing for me either economically or politically. Money is like oil in an engine of a car,” he said.

Asked why then, civil servants always complain of unpaid salaries and why government is reluctant to increase their salaries, Mr Kasaija placed the blame on accounting officers who do not do their work. He said the first call on the treasury is payment of salaries and that government’s priority is to construct infrastructure which can sustain the payment of the salary increments.
Last Friday, PSFU inaugurated a 19-member board led by city businessman Patrick Bitature.
Mr Gideon Badagawa, the executive director PSFU, said the new board is composed of distinguished businesspeople in the country who have tested the waters in good and tough times.