Omoro District Local Government Leadership is lobbying Chief Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) Coordinator, General Caleb Akandwanaho Alias Salim Saleh to throw his weight into supporting them in developing a comprehensive Investment Plan to enable them to hold the First Ever Investment Conference to attract Investors in the District.
Okello Douglas Peter Okao, the Omoro District Chairperson was bold about this before the Chief OWC Coordinator from Labora Youth Centre during the pass out of the district leaders who had undergone a one-week ideological training recently.
Audio File one: Okello Douglas Peter Okao on Investment plan request –Eng
This request for an Investment Plan also requires Omoro District Local Government to comply with the strategic investment Committee alignment from the Ministry of Local Government that requires every district in Uganda to have a Local Economic Development and Investment Committee (LEDIC).
This committee is tasked with the responsibilities of identifying and recommending suitable land for industrial parks and business parks in Local Government, monitoring, documenting, and disseminating information about Local Economic Development (LED) and Investment Promotions in Local Government.
As Omoro grapples with the challenges of eleven unconnected Value Addition Facilities to the power grid, Tumwine Stephen, a senior Development Officer in the Ministry of Local Government roots that, if Omoro District Local Government had this Committee as the Ministry had guided all districts about a year ago, some of the challenges and answers on Omoro Investment issues would have been sorted or documented into details for easy intervention by this very committee long time.
Tumwine said that Omoro District has been given up to January,30th 2024 to submit fully-fledged LEDIC Committee members to the Ministry of Local Government since it would support them with their investment appetite.
According to Tumwine, the Committee has the Chief Administrative Officer as the Chairperson, the District Commercial Office as the secretariat, a Technical Planning Committee that comprises all the heads of Department in the District, at least a representative from the Private Sector, Media, Civil Society, and Academia. They are also expected to at least hold meetings once every two months.
Tumwine in the spirit of popularizing LEDIC, told Gen.Salim Saleh that the Committee harmonizes the two already existing Committees within the Local Government System, that is District Investment Committee headed by the District Chairperson under Uganda Investment Authority and District Local Economic Development (LED Resource Team headed by the Chief Administrative Officer under the Ministry Local Government.
With LEDIC, the Ministry of Local Government is partnering directly with the Uganda Investment Authority so that all the players championing development in the district with duplicating roles in the other investment committees come together under the arrangement of the ‘Technical Planning Committee’ in LEDIC and use their collective expertise to solve the problem of investment in a District.
To this, Tumwine believes that the wastage of government investments in the Local Government would be known earlier and sorted quickly with the Local Economic Development Investment Committee (LEDIC) working as a whole collective team.
Audile File two: Gen. Saleh queries Tumwine about the work of the Committee and Tumwine answers. -Eng
In an exclusive interview with the Elephant, Okello Douglas Peter Okao, the Omoro district Chairperson confirmed that they would comply with the dateline of submitting the Committee to the Ministry of Local Government and would immediately operationalize it to meet the district target of using Uganda’s Investment Champion, the Chief OWC coordinator to bring investment boost in Omoro.
“Indeed, this committee will help us in profiling the economic potential of Omoro district, identifying the local revenue resources and tax collection base including to spur economic growth in the district.” Okao submitted.
With 95 percent of farmers practicing subsistence farming in Omoro, eleven Value Addition Facilities not connected to the power grid, and the action-oriented intervention of the OWC Chief Coordinator to solve most of the problems including directing twelve tractors to the district, mobilizing development agencies to bridge services gap in Omoro. The Omoro District Leadership through the first cadre course for the local leaders is determined to ensure an increase in production and mobilize their farmers to embrace commercial farming, a strategy for the socio-economic and wealth creation agenda of the Government of Uganda.
Attachment:
Here Presentation on the Local Economic Development and Investment Committee new 2024 1 (1) by Tumwine Stephen, Senior Development Officer LED, Ministry of Local Government to Omoro Leaders on January 9th,2024.
Ends.
