During the 2023 International Labour Day celebrations marked in Buikwe district, President Yoweri Museveni declared that he was going to set up an investors' protection unit, under his office. 

The unit was to co-ordinate, guide and support investors and protect them from corrupt officials and others who had been fleecing them of their money as they seek to invest in Uganda. 

Museveni said he would appoint Col. Edith Nakalema to head it. The unit started operations in July 2023 and as it approaches its first anniversary, Nakalema has thanked the President for his support and guidance. 

According to her, this has enabled the State House Investors Protection Unit (SH-IPU) to register success. Nakalema shares her vision for the coming years below:

As Ugandans celebrate the International Labour Day, we at the Investors Protection Unit, would like to congratulate and wish Ugandans a Happy Labour Day.

We would also like to thank His Excellence President Yoweri Museveni for the many initiatives he has put in place to ensure that corruption is fought and that the wealth creators are protected, guided and supported in whatever they are doing.

I must thank the President for appointing me to head the Investors Protection Unit. As soon I was appointed, together with a team we started mobilising to set up an office on Lumumba Avenue in Kampala.

We later developed the Uganda Electronic Investors Protection Portal, which was launched by the President at State House Entebbe. The portal can be reached by any investor wherever they may be by visiting our website.

After one year in office, we are now accounting to the appointing authority and as head of state we have so far reached out to all those that needed our attention as he tasked us to do, and we have attended to everyone that has come to us. 

The President wished to have a reference where investors would call through phones, write through emails or send messages via phones or use any other social media platform to be helped. He asked us to ensure that the wealth creators are not delayed by any Government ministry department or agency, and to eliminate incidents where investors are asked bribes.

The president asked me to co-ordinate with various players to ensure investment thrives in Uganda.

After one year, we have so far co-ordinated over 300 cases conclusively and we have made engagements with both foreign and domestic investors at various levels.

We have co-ordinated with big, small, medium and big enterprises, and traders’ associations including Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA), Mbarara City Traders Association (MBACITA), and met officials from the Chinese embassy who came to our unit seeking protection when KACITA threatened to demonstrate against their citizens who they accused of engaging in petty trade.

I was able to co-ordinate and brought the two sides together and this was resolved.  

We have also worked well with all the government sectors, especially the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) since many local traders have been complaining about what they perceived as high taxes and other taxes, which they say they do not understand. Many traders complained that they don’t understand some taxes like the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing Solution (EFRIS), which, thankfully, the President is addressing himself.

With his intervention, the traders now remain hopeful that EFRIS will be a good initiative that will benefit us as a country.

The traders keep on reporting key issues like lack of efficient tax education, high cost of accessing financing, high interest on loans from commercial banks. But we have extensively engaged with the leadership of Bank of Uganda's top management including the deputy governor, Michael Atingi-Ego, and his two directors in line with the financing and supervising funds, Tumweine Twinemanzi and Richard Byarugaba whom we have been engaging on various issues including the Agricultural Credit Fund and the Small Business Recovery Fund.

The agricultural fund is doing fairly well, although not satisfactory, but the small recovery fund, which was intended to help people get out of covid shocks is still performing poorly.

In 2021 the Government injected shillings 100 billion through the Bank of Uganda and according to the agreement, commercial banks accepted to match it with shillings 100 billion, which totals to 200 billion.

 But by June 2023, only shillings six billion had been given out. But with consistent engagement with BOU, and several commercial banks, by last March this year, up to 24 billion has so far been dispatched to local traders. We still find this very low, but we are continually engaging commercial banks to simplify the processes to enable people access it.

We also have had good engagement with all investors that have come to us and those we have met in the field. We look forward to working with everyone to ensure a thriving investment climate in Uganda.

Having had the Uganda Electronic Investors Portal under the guidance of the President, we have seen many investors from across the world reach us through online. We now have hundreds of cases and compliments about this Portal including at a recent oil and gas meeting in Saudi Arabia, where Ugandan officials were trying to educate the Arab businesspeople about the portal but instead informed them that they were already aware about it and are using it.

We continue to encourage citizens to support wealth creators, because investment remains the backbone of economic development.

As we look forward to the future, we would like to collaborate effectively with universities and other institutions of higher learning that have anticorruption centres and think-tanks to ensure that we get well researched information. and involve them in our work.

We want to keep inviting them or go to them to them and share what we have so far gathered from both local and foreign investors, with regard to what affects the progress of all wealth creators.