Ms. Nassuuna Doreen, Head of Department - Trade, Industry & LED

 Mandate

To provide leadership, technical support and guidance for the delivery of quality Commercial services in the Municipality.

 Mission

To formulate, review and support policies, strategies, plans and programs that promote and ensure expansion and diversification of trade, cooperatives, environmentally sustainable industrialization, appropriate technology development and transfer to generate wealth for poverty eradication and benefit the Municipality socially and economically.

Objectives

• To Implement and monitor policies, programs and laws on Commercial sub-sector.
• To supervise and manage the departmental activities, programs and staff.
• to evaluate and prepare status reports on departmental activities.
• To manage and account for all the resources availed for the department
• To initiate developmental projects in Tourism, trade, Industry and Cooperatives sectors.
• To develop training programs for both the stakeholders and staff in Tourism, Trade, Industry, Cooperatives and LED.
• To Compile and process and disseminate trade information, data and statistics to stakeholders.
• To sensitize the communities on the Commercial services.
• To provide stakeholders with technical advice on Tourism, Trade, industry and Cooperatives issues.
• To promote Local Economic Development in the Municipality. 

Services offered

• Trade Development Services
• Enterprise Development Services
• Market Linkage Services
• Cooperatives Mobilization and outreach services
• Tourism Promotion Services
• Industrial Development services
• Sector management and Coordination
• Local Economic Development Services

Achievements

• 10 radio talk shows participated in
• 25 businesses linked to UNBS for product quality and standards certifications
• 30 MSMEs were trained in aspects of financial literacy and records keeping from the entire Municipality
• 25 business enterprises were assisted in the registration process
• 10 producer groups were linked to markets internationally through the Uganda Export Promotion Board.
• 250 briefs/bulletins disseminated in entire Municipality
• 10 cooperatives were supervised.
• 5 Annual General Meetings were attended.
• Hospitality facilities inventory updated.
• 8 planning meetings were held at three Divisions of Bunamwaya, Ndejje and Masajja and at the Municipal Headquarters and 1 monitoring session was also conducted for both technical and political leaders of the sectoral committee members

Challenges

• Budget Cut: when the department was created FY 2019/2020, it experienced a budget cut from 32,000,000/= to 12,000,000/= This makes it impossible to achieve meaningful objectives.
• Lack of departmental field vehicle; this makes mobility of staff during the field difficult yet there is a lot to cover.
• Narrow tourism product diversity due to lack of funding from Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities: Tourism activities are largely concentrated on wildlife by MoTWA yet there is various tourism potential across the country. For instance, Makindye Ssabagabo MC has an existing tourism potential in culture community, faith based conferences and business tourism.

Events/activities ahead

• Assessment and approval of businesses for trading licenses in ongoing across the three Divisions of Ndejje, Masajja and Bunamwaya.

Other relevant information

The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives formulated the Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU) Policy within the framework of several National Development Policies and strategies particularly the National Trade Policy (NTP), the National Industrial Policy (NIP), the National Standards and Quality Policy (NSQP), the National Cooperatives Policy among others.

Policy objective:

 (i)    To promote the consumption of local goods and services.

(ii)  To promote the use and conformity to standards to guarantee quality goods and services.

(iii) To provide capacity-building programs to local suppliers of goods and services.

It is upon this background that Makindye ssabagabo Municipal Council organizes an Exhibition annually under the Department of trade, Industry and Local Economic Development which are in line with Buy Uganda Build Uganda Policy and therefore for that information all local producers are free to participate.