First Deputy Prime Minister Rebecca Kadaga has said government plans to invest more than $1.74 billion in Kiira Motors over the next four years to bolster the company's plans of manufacturing more environmentally friendly cars.
"Uganda plans to invest $1.74 billion through 2028. With an already high import bill for fuel costing the country over $2 billion per year, this initiative should significantly reduce this colossal foreign exchange drain," Kadaga said while making her remarks at the E-mobility expo held at the Kiira Motors production plant in Jinja recently.
Kadaga noted that government is committed to a full transition to electric mobility in public transport by 2030. She said the country has been proactive in fostering the growth of its e-mobility sector through a variety of supportive policies such as lowering costs of production, providing financial incentives, and building the necessary infrastructure needed to boost uptake of electric vehicles.
Kadaga said the investment in Kiira Motors will generate more than 500,000 jobs and achieve a 65 per cent local production rate in the electric vehicle value chain, thus reducing pollution by 25 per cent.
"The running and repair bills for electric vehicles are also much lower, as already demonstrated by the first Kayoola electric buses to be deployed on our roads in 2019, which have already covered over 100,000 kilometres in five years without registering a single technical problem," she added.
Speaking to journalists at the sidelines of the event, Monica Musenero, the minster in charge of science technology and innovation, noted that Kiira Motors plant needs money that will enable it to have the production capacity of the electronic buses that falls between 2,500 to 5,000 buses annually.
