BY MOSES SSERWANGA
The new Minister of Science Technology and
Innovation, Office of the President, Dr.
Monica Musenero has made her maiden toured of the multi-million Kiira Vehicle Plant which
will be completed at the end of the year with Kiira Motors set to produce
1,030 for the Tondeka Mass Bus Transit System in Kampala.
Dr. Musenero was received at the Kiira Vehicle Plant (KVP) by
the company’s Executive Chairman , Prof. Sandy Stevens Tickodri- Togboa
, the CEO , Mr. Paul Isaac Musasizi and
Lieutenant General, James Mugira the Managing Director, and the Chief Executive
Officer of the National Enterprise Corporation (NEC), the business arm of the
Uganda People's Defence Forces.
Kiira Vehicle Plant has
been constructed by the UPDF engineering brigade under NEC and will be the largest in the East and Central Africa with
a capacity to produce 22 buses per day and 5,000 a year .
While
underscoring the growing demand for vehicles on the African continent , Dr.
Musenero who promised to be ‘technical minister’ called upon Ugandans to be
ready to benefit from the huge economic benefits available in Uganda’s nascent
automotive industry which has been championed by President Museveni for over
two decades.
“The motor vehicle market is growing steadily with
regional vehicle sales anticipated to reach over 630,000 vehicles annually for
EAC and 10 million vehicles annually on the African Continent by 2030,” Dr.
Musenero stated adding that the growing
demand for vehicles remained an untapped
opportunity for domestic industrialization .
Dr.Musenero explained
that government under the visionary leadership of President Yoweri Museveni has taken
definitive steps towards building the Indigenous Motor Vehicle Industry in
Uganda that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs along the automotive
industry value chain .
Prof. Tickodri said
that building the Indigenous Motor Vehicle Industry provides an unprecedented
opportunity for promoting value addition to Uganda’s mineral and other natural
resources to ensure import substitution and export promotion of vehicles,
parts, components and systems.
Eng. Hilary Obaloker
Onek, Minister of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees - the Patron of the Uganda
Institution of Professional Engineers expressed happiness that many
Ugandan engineers and other technical professionals were playing a leading
role in the design, construction and
operation of the Kiira Vehicle Plant
thereby creating local capacity which is very much needed for government’s Buy
Uganda ,Build Uganda (BUBU) policy.
Gen. James Mugira, said
the Kiira Vehicle Plant will go a longway
to validate the UPDF’s capacity and
technical ability to deliver world class facilities . He asked government to
released all the needed funds to complete the plant before the end of the year
.
Kiira Motors
Corporation (KMC) is currently utilizing the facilities and resources at NEC's
facility in Nakasongola, build another two Kayoola fully electric buses and one
Kayoola Diesel Coach which will bring the company’s locally made buses six.
Kiira Motors
entering the market
The company is working
with Tondeka Metro, Rent Co Africa and Golden Dragon as the Technology Partner
to produce 30,000 Buses including fully electric ones -at the Kiira Vehicle
Plant over a period of 10 years . The KVP will produce and deploy 1,030 buses
by mid-2022, 50 of which will be electric.
The buses will be sold regionally and 65% of parts and components are to
be produced locally by 2030.
“The initiative is
aimed at Modernizing Public Transport in the Urban Centers in Uganda and
beyond, while building the Indigenous Motor Vehicle Industry through Technology
Transfer and Supply Chain Localization,” the companies involved in this local
joint venture announced early this year .
The Mass Transit Bus
System (MTBS) will operate in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area within the
radius of 25-30km along gazette routes and is estimated to move approximately
600,000 people per day while adhering to the Ministry of Health guidelines on
COVID-19 and 1,500,000 people per day on a business-as-usual scenario.
Payments for tickets
will be made through an end-to-end cashless ticketing system integrated with
Mobile Money (Airtel Money, MTN Mobile Money and Afri-money), Visa, Mastercard
and Union Pay.
The Mass Transit Bus
System is expected to improve passenger boarding and alighting times and reduce
overall waiting and travel times to between 30 minutes to one hour on each trip
as compared to the current taxi system travel/waiting time of over 1.3 hours
while also reducing annual expenditure off individual disposable incomes on
transportation within GKMA by up to 80%.
There will be improved
revenue collection for taxi operators at the first and last mile through the
Tondeka Taxi Owners Feeder Road Scheme that will enable integration into the
Tondeka Cashless Ticketing and Payment System for a seamless commuter
experience.
Building the Indigenous
Motor Vehicle Industry is projected to create over 100,000 jobs directly and
indirectly in the medium term including but not limited to engineers, IT
specialists, planners, welders, painters, designers, architects, lawyers,
financial analysts, accountants, economists, logistics and supply chain
practitioners, auditors, human resources personnel, sales executives,
marketers, machine operators, drivers, stewards and cleaners.
Tondeka joining
other Kiira Motors Clients and Stakeholders to develop Uganda’s Automotive
Industry
Other stakeholder
present included a team of Tondeka
Executives led by their Chairman , Dr. Peter Kibowa who said that company will
be Kiira Motors first client to in
fulfillment of what President Museveni
directed to do -that’s to use the private sector financing mechnanism to
put in place a modern mass transport system in Kampala.
Other stakeholders were
-8M Forum which was represented by Eng. Darlington Sakwa, a leading ICT
specialist and consultant; Mr. Stuart Jason Mwesigwa, the Chief Commercial
Manager of Roofings Ltd.; Total, Absa Bank, DFCU Bank , MTN and Airtel ,
Hardware World among others .
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