New steel plant set to employ 2,000 people
Workers in a scrap yard filling a furnace with metal scrap for smelting at the Roofings Rolling Mills factory in Namanve on Wednesday. Photo by Stephen Otage.
What you need to know:
The company expects to pay Shs120 billion in taxes this year.
About 2,000 new jobs are likely to be created when Roofings Rolling Mills Limited commissions its new Shs320 billion steel manufacturing plant in Namanve industrial park in October.
This will make it the largest steel producer in the Great Lakes region.
According to Mr Sikander Lalani, the chairman of Roofings Group, the new project is set to change the face of the steel production in East Africa because of the technical assistance sought from the Japan-based steel manufacturer Yodogawa Steel Works, the main producers of steel for Toyota Motors and General Electric.
Addressing the Parliamentary Committee on the National Economy on Wednesday, Mr Lalani said the commencement of steel production in Uganda is a great milestone in changing Uganda’s balance of trade because for the last 17 years, Uganda has been a net importer of all its steel products.
Benefit
“With this new plant, Uganda is going to be supplying Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. This will improve our balance of trade because in 2011, we paid Shs78b in tax but it went down in 2012. But this year, we expect to pay Shs120b,” he told the MPs.
The legislators called for the revocation of all the licences which were issued to investors who have remained dormant for more than 20 years.
“We should stop dealing with jokers because if you have failed to do something in 20 years, what do you think you can do with the licence?” Mr Stephen Mukitale, the committee chairman, questioned.
Mr Lalani says much as Rift Valley Railways has given them two train engines and 22 wagons to haul steel sheets from Mombasa to the factory, their biggest worry is the dwindling steel scrap in East Africa. He asked the government to grant the company an ore mining licence.
