World Bank urges government on investment planning
The World Bank continues to be the largest multilateral donor constituting 62 per cent of international assistance to Uganda government.
What you need to know:
Carrying out proper implementation of investment projects will have a positive impact on Uganda’s economic growth.
The World Bank has advised the government to focus more on improving public investment planning and management of investment projects, saying that this will help the country to realize the value for the money which government allocates to various sectors of the economy through the national budget.
A World Bank country economist argues that improving public investment planning and management will also help the country to realize faster recovery in the economic growth, which is currently below the country’s projected average.
Over of the years, Uganda has seen increased public expenditure being made by the government through the national budget budget with the government arguing that increased expenditure is inevitable because prioritization of key economic sectors like infrastructure development, health, agriculture, education.
Unfortunately, the quality of most of these sectors has remained poor with many of them remaining incomplete or not implemented due to lack of capacity in various government departments.
Addressing journalists in Kampala last week, the World Bank Country Manager Mr Moustapha Ndiaye said that proper planning and management of public investment should go hand in hand with the increased budgetary allocations that the government is making in various sectors of the economy if Uganda is to realize tangible progress in the various investment projects that the government is undertaking.
“Strengthening investment planning and undertaking proper management of public investment projects is critical for this country to register progress in economic development. We have seen slowdown in public investment in the recent past, [to some extent] this is one of the reasons as to why there has been slow in the country’s economic growth,” he said.
Investment projects are in roads/transport sectors, hydroelectric power stations (energy), education agriculture among others.
Mr Ndiaye said that giving due attention, carrying out proper implementation of investment projects- within the required time, has a positive impact on Uganda’s economic growth.
Reflecting on the progress, Mr Ndiayesaid for two decades, the Ugandan economy has sustained strong per capita income driven to large extent by the implementation of reform programmes but due to difficulties in both the external and internal global economic environment the country’s growth rate declined to 3.2 per cent .
