By Our Reporter
Uganda is likely to miss its target of manufacturing vehicles by mid-2021 as its automobile project — Kiira Motors — runs into funding problems.
Alongside Uganda Airlines, Kiira Motors is one of President Yoweri Museveni’s pet projects, which have seen the state focus on sectors the private sector has little appetite for. But while the former passed a turning point with the delivery of the first pair of aircraft two months ago, Kiira Motors faces little buy-in by government technocrats. This has resulted in a mismatch between project timelines and funding releases by the Treasury.
Construction of the manufacturing facility started in Jinja, 80 kilometres east of Kampala in February with first vehicles expected to roll off the assembly line in July 2021. But project officials now warn that the target may not be attainable unless funding streams become more predictable.
FUNDS
According to KMC executive chairman Prof Tikodri Togboa, the project has been swimming against the tide, with the Treasury failing to release funds as allocated in the budget.
“Up to this point, the funding releases have deviated from the road map. The project was allocated seed funding of $38.56 million to be released over a four-year timeline running from 2018 to 2022 as capitalization to kick-start automobile manufacturing. But we are already dealing with a shortfall of $671,000 in the first year,” said Prof Tikodri.
