The President of São Tomé and Príncipe, H.E Carlos Manuel Vila Nova has today visited the Kiira Vehicle Plant in Jinja District.

During the visit, H.E Vila Nova revealed that he was delighted to pay a call to the vehicle plant, praising it as an impressive project.

“When we see the implementation of such a project we go back and see where to start from,” he said.

H.E Vila Nova also thanked President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for his unwavering commitment in steering Uganda’s development.

“The leadership of my own brother H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is very important in all of this. I want to thank him in the name of my mission and my people for everything he is doing for Uganda and Africa. I also want to thank all of you for what you are doing in the implementation of this project,” he added.

President Vila Nova came to Uganda yesterday on a two-day working visit.

The Kiira Motors Corporation Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Paul Isaac Musasizi warmly welcomed President Vila Nova to the vehicle plant and informed him that the facility was established to champion the development of Uganda’s domestic automotive value chain for job and wealth creation through technology transfer, supply chain localization and contract manufacturing.

“This company was born out of the Presidential Initiative for Science, Technology and Innovation at Makerere University which is one of the leading institutions of higher Education in Africa. Your Excellency, here where you are, we are setting up a vehicle plant on over 100 acres of land and we are working with the National Enterprise Corporation (NEC) which is under the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and they are the ones doing the construction that is being supervised by a team of engineers, architects, surveyors and  other technical people from Makerere University,” Mr. Musasizi said.

“Kiira Motors Corporation is really the brain child of His Excellency the President, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and its dear to him, he understood that our country to advance in industrialization, one of the aspects we need to work on is making our own vehicles, particularly because when you make a vehicle you open up industrialization in the iron and steel, silk, carpentry, electricals and electronics, textiles, leather, and so many different aspects that come together to make the over 70,000 parts of a vehicle,” he added.

The Jinja Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Mr. Richard Gulume noted that his office is working together with Kiira Motors to ensure the success of the project.

“Having you here is a very big blessing Your Excellency, and we were told that you are going back today but we are requesting to stay for some more days because Jinja has other tourist attractions which you will really enjoy seeing,” Mr. Gulume added.

Eng. Brian Buhanda, the General Manager – NEC Construction Works & Engineering Ltd said, “Kiira Motors is fully owned by the government, and we conduct our business through different subsidiaries of which one of them is NEC Construction works and Engineering which is basically involved in such kinds of infrastructure development.  Through collaboration as government bodies, is how we find ourselves into this particular development. All the facilities that you are visiting today are put up by our government local companies.”

Kiira Motors Corporation and NEC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the construction of Kiira Vehicle Plant Start-Up Facilities (Phase I) at the Jinja Industrial and Business Park based on the Force Account Mechanism provided for under Section 95(A) of the PPDA Act, 2003 (as amended). This was subsequent to clearance of the MOU by the Solicitor General.

The Kiira Vehicle Plant site was handed over to NEC on 18th January 2019, which commenced work on 11th February 2019.

The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gen. Jeje Odongo and the Director General of External Security Organization (ESO), Ambassador Joseph Ocwet.