By Spy Uganda
Kampala: The State Minister of Industry, David Bahati has handed over the position of the country’s Focal Point Minister for African Peer Review Mechanism to his Planning counterpart, Amos Lugoloobi.
Formerly serving as the State Minister of Planning, Bahati had been in charge of APRM, which was established by Africa’s Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) as an instrument for the AU Member States to voluntarily self-monitor their governance performance.
Often described as “Africa’s unique and innovative approach to governance”, APRM has an objective of improving governance dynamics at the local, national and continental levels.
Bahati said at the handover ceremony at Serena Hotel Kampala that government will continue to support the APRM process in Uganda because of its benefits to good governance and democracy.
“We need to use this mechanism to help our leaders fight things that are taking us back. We must condemn coups,” said Bahati.
Performance and progress are measured in four thematic areas which include; democracy and political governance, economic governance and management, corporate governance and sociology-economic development.
Lugoloobi said at the function that Uganda is going to increase policy emphasis towards industrialization in order to harness the enormous opportunities being blocked by insufficient investment in industrial transformation, noting that it is the only path to middle-income status.
“There is no developing country that can develop and move out of poverty without industries. We want to see how we can provide more resources to see more improvement in agriculture and more industries coming up,” said Lugoloobi.
“The government is aggressively promoting agro-industrialisation. We want to deliver industries in Uganda” Lugoloobi said.
During Bahati’s tenure, Uganda delivered flagship outputs in terms of NDPII and NDPIII and other critical strategies and development plans, especially during the Covid19 pandemic.
“Development planning capacity has been built across the country. He came in when we were struggling to make central in everything and now we are aligning everything to the development plan at all levels,” said Lugoloobi.
According to APRM Continental Secretariat CEO Prof Eddy Maloka, APRM forum is responsible for the oversight of the members for mutual learning and capacity building as well as constructive peer dialogue and persuasion.
“I’m happy that Uganda is progressing well and one of the best role models in implementing the APRM recommendations,” said Maloka.
