By MOSES SSERWANGA
Many Ugandans are excited about the Ugandan made Kayoola EVS (fully electric ) buses that have
been plying the Kampala – Entebbe and Express highway routes for the last two
months -while offering shuttle services to Civil Aviation Authority , (CAA).
When Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC) Uganda’s
automotive industry leaders entered into a partnership with CAA to validate
their production- fully electric buses many naysayers were caught with pants
down -since they deliberately don’t want
to see anything positive coming out of
Uganda .
But for the staff of CAA, the locally built buses are a marvel and a true testament that Uganda
doesn’t not only have the talent but capabilities to match any other vehicles
producing countries- if the right environment and resources are provided for
the engineers and other value chain actors to express themselves in the nascent
automotive industry .
One cannot tier to repeat themselves that
all the major economies in the world are thriving on their respective
automotive industries . Available data shows that all the top
economies of the world have budding automotive industries . From
America 's automobile heartbeat in Michigan (General Motors
) , China’s Shanghai General Motors, Malaysia’s Proton, Japan’ s
Toyota , South Korea’s Hyundai to South Africa 's
Honda, the automotive sector has played a leading role in the development
of these countries respective economies .
All
the top world biggest economies in 2019 to 2020 which include the USA,
China, Japan Germany, United Kingdom, India , France and South Africa
,governments have invested heavily and continue to support their automotive
industries . Governments in other relatively small economies like Vietnam,
Ethiopia, Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria, Turkey are funding their car producers too.
In
Asia, governments of major vehicle production countries such as China, South
Korea, Malaysia, and Japan have played a virtual role to ensure that their
automotive industries, do not only grow and survive the global economic
turbulences due to the global-novel-Covid 19 pandemic that’s has left economies
shutdown for months - but that such industries are at the center of a fast
recovery program .
But
in Uganda and East African it is a completely different story altogether . Despite the
growing demand for vehicles in Uganda and the EAC, vehicles are predominantly
imported as Fully Built Units without domestic value addition. This is a big shame !
Studies have also shown that the Uganda
Vehicle Import Value has grown from US$ 190 Million in 2005 to a whopping US$
550 Million in 2015 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 11.8% representing
approximately 10% of the National Gross Import Value. For the same period,
vehicles were the second highest valued imported goods after petroleum
products.
It is further worth noting that the
vehicle market size in the EAC has grown from 158,000 in 2011 to 257,000 in
2015 and is projected to reach over 6300,000 by 2030. Unfortunately many of the 45,560 vehicles registered
by Uganda Revenue Authority in 2014, 15% were new and 85% used with an average age of 16 years at
registration. Can you imagine the total waste here ! This not to mention that the
importation of end-of-life vehicle technology has resulted into low fuel
efficiency and hazardous transport-based carbon emissions contributing to
climate change.
And yet Kiira Motors continues to
demonstrate as highlighted above that it does not only have home grown technology
but it now has the capabilities to produce
vehicles locally starting with buses both fully electric and combustion engine
ones which are fuel efficient and environmental friendly . Already , mainstream
media has reported that Kiira Motors can for now produce 8 buses a month at
their Nakasongola base and this will be scaled up to at least 22 buses a day -
once the construction of the Kiira
Vehicles Plant is completed by the UPDF mid next year.
Therefore, the development of Uganda’s automotive industry
has come a long way in the last decade or so . Milestones after milestones have
been registered and documented by the media. In case you have forgotten , just last
year , Uganda was assigned for the first time, a World Manufacturers
Identifier (WMI) by the International Society for Automotive Engineers’ (SAE)-
paving way for production of vehicles in the country.
The SAE WMI Coordinator, Mr. Kris Siddall stated that
Uganda has now been officially assigned WMI codes to be used by vehicles
manufacturers. This means that Uganda is internationally recognized as a car
producing country .
Perhaps the same reason why President
Museveni has now come out to state that the Uganda government will no-longer
allow the importation of fully built buses. While launching the 3-day
National Resistance Movement (NRM) National Executive Committee (NEC) and
delegates - virtual conference at State House in Entebbe, Museveni empathized
the need for value addition across all productive sectors (including the
automotive industry )to ensure jobs and wealth creation.
Museveni
underscored the need for government to prioritize the post Covid-19
interventions to boost the economy by supporting key nine production
sectors including transport, where local industry champions like Kiira
Motors Corporation Ltd under the Ministry of Science Technology and
Innovation are taking the lead.
With
Shs.400billion, President Museveni noted, the automotive industry
can take off and any balance of payments support should go towards development
of local manufacturing capacity to ensure the country is competitive in terms
of import -substitution and export- promotion.
Yet
the bureaucrats as usual have maintained a notable silence about these
presidential directives and others are busy involved in machinations with
briefcase middlemen to siphon off public-tax
payers money by importing fully built buses and deny Ugandans job opportunities
and income.
These
individuals must be stopped in their
tracks and the presidential directives implemented rather urgently .
No comments:
Post a Comment