The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, has asked government to re-evaluate the Investment Policy in a bid to offer and improve incentives to Ugandans in the Diaspora to invest back home.
Kadaga made these remarks at the opening 2nd Uganda Canada Diaspora Business Expo and Convention held over the weekend in Toronto, Canada.
She said that government needs to look into the possibility of making sure that the policy is changed to make it easy for Ugandans in the Diaspora to bring their money into the country for investment purposes.
“We need to look into our incentives to attract business in order for us to compete with other economies which have set up good investment packages that enable people invest in their economies,” she said.
Kadaga cited Canada which grants citizenship to persons who have potential in investing into the Canadian economy.
“I have looked into our system for something that can attract people to invest at home and have not found it. We have concentrated more on tax holidays which alone cannot encourage our diaspora people to invest,” she said.
She said that people in the diaspora have individually made investments but called on government to tap into this potential which will contribute to the development of the country.
“In Ethiopia, the construction of the Inga Dam was a contribution of the people in the Diaspora, whose government put up an investment vehicle which the Ugandan government should copy in order to develop some of our major projects,” Kadaga said.
