The Uganda Local Government Association (ULGA) has launched the Local Economic Development (LED) as a pilot project aimed at boosting local revenue collections.
The launch was held in Kampala presided over by the State Minister for Local Government, Jennifer Namuyangu who noted that the project is one of the avenues through which local governments can provide better services to the citizens hence rising revenue.
Namuyangu said that some districts have been solely depending on the Centre for resources, and some had reached the extent of getting 98% money from the Centre and only collect 2%.
“With these meager collections, their councils must be paid from revenue collections as well as providing other services to the community members, which becomes hard,” Namuyangu said.
Namuyangu said that as such, government came up with a policy to ensure that every local Government comes up with income generating activities which has failed for years.
“We are pleased that ULGA and her partners have come up with an innovation to go and support the three local governments to see that the policy of Local Economic Development is taken up, they are to guide them in terms of coming up with projects and strategies as well as attracting community investors,” Namuyangu said.
The ULGA Secretary General, Gertrude Rose Gamwera noted that the pilot project comes in line with the association’s fourth key strategic investment area which is building capacity of local governments to deliver services taking advantage of the National LED Policy objectives.
Gamwera said during the launch that the project is to be used as an entry point to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by local governments.
The main purpose of the project is to help local governments work better with the National LED policy to build their capacities as well as identifying viable economic activities within their communities.
The pilot project will take place in two districts and one municipality that’s is Mpigi district, Mukono district and Makindye Ssabagabo Municipality.
“ULGA continues to invest in actions that support Local Governments in enabling them to select those most competitive ventures in which they possess comparative advantage over others given local resources that’s natural, human and territorial,” Gamwera said.
Gamwera noted that it is anticipated that the Local Governments will then articulate the desire into an economic goal that will be pursued by them, the private sector as well as communities that they lead.
