The Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) has got a new executive director in Jolly Kamugira Kaguhangire – months after Dr Frank Sebbowa bowed out.
The UIA board unveiled Kaguhangire to the media today, Monday in Kampala. Kaguhangire worked with Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) for 24 years, rising to the position of head of service management, where, she oversaw a number of innovations like the Integrated Tax Administration System as well as the Taxpayer Register Expansion Project.
She is a graduate of management studies from Makerere University, Uganda Management Institute and Uganda Christian University, among others.
Kaguhangire replaces Sebbowa whose contract the board declined to renew after a whistle-blower alleged that he was involved in nepotistic tendencies, which saw many of his kith and kin recruited into the authority.
The board chair, Emely Kugonza described Kaguhangire as a competent person whose track record of managing corporate business plans and reforms in URA is what UIA needs at this critical time when the investment body is implementing its 2016/2021 strategic plan.
“Jolly will be heading Uganda Investment Authority. She is the person the board was able to get out of so many. We did a two-search process and she emerged the best. Jolly is a highly competent person with vast experience in business development, investment issues.
She’s been working for a number of years with Uganda Investment Authority. She has had training at the best universities in this country, on the continent and beyond the continent.
She has exposure in many fields, she has interacted with investors so maybe this will be a new way to work with them and the board we’re deeply convinced that we have the best person that is going to take Uganda Investment Authority to the highest and best level as the best investment promotion agency in the world”, said Kugonza.
According to Kugonza, Kaguhangire’s expertise is the kind of thing UIA as a one-stop centre for investors requires. He said he has no doubt that she possesses the necessary competencies for the job.
“My mandate is to see that with the team of Uganda Investment Authority, we create what I can call investor confidence – foreign investors, local investors to create confidence in them that Uganda is the best destination.
Uganda is the best place to invest and we all know that in Uganda we have so much resources and our policies are very good. We have a highly liberalised economy. Investors can come and bring their capital, they can take back their profit.
There is no control that someone can lose his money in this country. So our role is to see that indeed Uganda is competitive. It is competitive globally to see that it is the best country to invest in and I want to assure you that we are going to achieve that”, said Kaguhangire.
On why the UIA was unable to appoint an insider who is well-versed with investment issues instead of an outsider, Kugonza said four insiders applied and went through the rigorous recruitment process, but Kaguhangire emerged the best.
“According to the East African protocols, we would be opening it [position] up to the East Africans and that why we had to advertise it in the press for everybody to have an opportunity. And even internally people applied. Actually, we had four or five staff that internally applied for position.
These were measured, were evaluated against the others that were not from the institution. It happened that the best person was from outside the institution” said Kugonza.
Kugonza added that the new ED will oversee the UIA strategic plan of attracting more investments and creating one million jobs by 2021. The new executive director pledged to transform UIA into, as she put it, “the best investment destination in the world”.
When challenged on what new ideas she is bringing to UIA, considering that what she promised was also promised by her predecessors with little success, a confident Kaguhangire said she is a performer, citing the reforms and innovative projects she led from scratch at URA.
Kaguhangire said she is hitting the ground running and wants Ugandans to in future appreciate her in terms of what she has been able to accomplish for investment in the country.
UIA board member, George Piwang Jalobo said creating one million jobs by 2021 is possible and doable if Uganda is transformed into an investment hub instead of just a destination.
Piwang said the strategy includes regional small and medium enterprise development, partnerships with academia and innovators and global resource mobilisation.
According to Piwang, UIA is also keen on global strategic partnerships with especially China, Germany, Israel, Ireland, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and the United States.