KAMPALA – The government has set up a 21-member committee national taskforce on labour productivity enhancement in Uganda, intended to ensure the country’s labour force is efficiently exploited.
The taskforce was launched by Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Janat Mukwaya at the Ministry’s headquarters in Kampala where she revealed that it is aimed to cover loopholes highlighted in a number of reports that have for long indicated that Uganda’s labour force is underdeveloped.
Mukwaya cited the manpower survey, labour force surveys and capacity needs assessment in the oil and gas (2015) which highlighted that the country’s human resources; lack a positive mindset towards work, appropriate technology, skills and capital.
The Minister defended the formation of the National Taskforce on labour productivity enhancement saying that although Uganda is regarded as one of the countries with abundant natural resources and good climate, it has not attained economic ‘takeoff’ as envisaged in the Vision 2040 because of low levels of labour productivity, high dependence on subsistence agriculture.
According to the Ministry, the National Taskforce will generate information on sectoral labour productivity, evaluate labour productivity enhancement strategies as well as propose solutions for low productivity, provide guidance on the development of industry strategies, plans among others.
The Minister said that Uganda’s exports always go down because the production centers are not producing much as needed on the market.
She explained, “The exports collapse now and then because of the backward linkages because the production centers aren’t producing enough because when the production centers if given to supply ten containers only supplies once, never to be heard about again. Our people are yearning to get rich, but they don’t know how to get rich and they don’t know where to export, so we need these structures. “