Ssendaula asks EU for more cash

Nov 22, 2002

Finance minister, Gerald Ssendaula has asked the European Union for more funding to bolster the country’s growing infrastructure needs

By Stephen Asiimwe

Finance minister, Gerald Ssendaula has asked the European Union for more funding to bolster the country’s growing infrastructure needs.

Ssendaula was speaking at a joint press conference held at the ministry’s board room on Thursday with the visiting European Commission’s Director General for Development, Jacobus Richelle.

Ssendaula said Uganda had made tremendous progress in infrastructure development but needed more money to complete much-needed roads especially in the rural areas.

He cited the road from Rukungiri to the border with the D.R.Congo. The minister also mentioned that government was engaged in upgrading feeder roads as a means of linking farmers to vital markets under the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) programme.

“This is a multi-sectoral approach. We want to produce more, be more efficient, have high yielding seeds. We therefore need more support from the EIB (European Investment Bank),” he said.

Richelle said the EC was looking into the issue of more funding for Uganda. He said as a first step, the EC was “going to reinforce our delegation and send more people to Uganda. We shall be stepping up our support to this country”.

Richelle is in the country to attend the signing of the 9th European Development Fund (EDF) Regional Indicative Programme(RIP). The fund, which will run for the next five years, is worth 223 million euros.

Present at the briefing, was the EC head of delegation, Sigurd Illing and finance commissioner Patrick Ocailap.

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