Business

By Patrick Kagenda When Housing Finance Bank last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Royal Palm Estates to offer mortgages to its clients to buy houses in Butabika, a Kampala city suburb, the housing sector got a rare buzz. Interested buyers of the houses still have to fork …

By Independent Team The money will be used to strengthen its balance sheet and fund investment in its oil discoveries and prospects in Ghana and Uganda. January is turning out to be Tullow Oil’s best month. In a space of two weeks it has struck the biggest oil well in …

By Patrick Kagenda Kenya, Uganda governments stuck with bad concession over legal complications When it was signed in November 2006, the Uganda and Kenya governments’25-year concession to Rift Valley Railways (RVR) to run the operations of the Uganda Railway Corporation and the Kenya Railway Corporation was hailed as the “deal …

By Agnes Asiimwe Government is helpless as Ugandans are out-competed, investors bring their staff, senior posts held by foreigners Two years from now, if negotiations succeed, the East African Community Common Market Protocol should come in force on January 1, 2010. The protocol will allow free movement of services, capital, …

By Patrick Kagenda & John Njoroge Weak company law fails to protect the poor and gullible from fake saving schemes To Gauda Tushabomwe, it seemed like a brilliant way to invest her money. Tushabomwe, at the time an accountant with Kabale Diocese, was introduced to a microfinance organisation called COWE …

By Patrick Kagenda As the global financial crisis continues to affect economies worldwide, The Independent’s Patrick Kagenda talked to Gideon Badagawa, Executive Director Uganda Manufacturers Association on how it is affecting Uganda’s manufacturing sector. How will the global financial crisis affect Uganda? Uganda cannot escape the global economic crisis. There …

By Geoffrey Onegi-Obel Last week Dr Onegi-Obel described the limitation of the government’s `resource envelop’ budget driven response to the global economic slowdown including its impact on Uganda’s job creation, domestic savings and domestic direct investment. In this last of a two part series, he discusses possible solutions including a …

By Patrick Kagenda Basing on reduced US dollar remittances into the economy last December, Forex market operators are warning of a further battering of the shilling. Experts fear the dollar scarcity that led its value to shot up by 30% from Shs 1,700 to the dollar to Shs 2,200 before …

By The Independent Team President Yoweri Museveni has projected Uganda’s economic growth to be as high as 7.5% in the year ending June 30, according to a statement issued by the government Media Centre President. Mr Museveni based his projections on improved exports performance and investment in energy industries. “While …

By Geoffrey Onegi-Obel Limitations of the government’s `resource envelop’ budget driven response to the global economic slowdown including its impact on Uganda’s job creation, domestic savings and domestic direct investment We are already being dragged down by the world wide economic recession. How Uganda comes out of it is a …