Over the last few years, Uganda has seen a robust increment in the rise of industries from both local and foreign investors. This became evident yesterday as President Museveni commissioned the new Picfare company.
The company that is famous for scholastic materials will now start manufacturing other textile products that include labels for beverage, cosmetic, and tissue paper producing companies. Other materials to be produced by the company include all forms of office and office stationery, security printing services such as ballot papers, cheques among others.
The company that has been stationed in Njeru in Buikwe District will now shift to Namanve Industrial Park on an estimated 11 acres of land equivalent to 20,000 square kilometers.
While speaking about the company during its commissioning, Museveni said that he was amazed and happy that the investor had heeded his advice.
“I congratulate Picfare for this new investment. I remember when the proprietor came here and I told him Uganda is a safe investment destination. He had suffered in Rwanda but I told him that here under the NRM, we are not gamblers and that he would be here for a long term and won’t regret, the way he has expanded from textiles to printing and books, he can confirm I didn’t mislead him,” Museveni said.
The president went ahead to say how the Ministry of Energy had concluded a sample of how to transfer electricity from the dam directly to the Industrial Park without a broker/middleman. This was after he lashed out at UMEME during the labor day celebrations branding the body as exploitative.
“It will definitely bring down the cost of power. For the factories, it should be government dams to provide power and for the other businesses like night clubs and bars should be provided from someone else like thermal power,” the President promised.
He went ahead to promise the investor that his government would ensure provision of electricity at lower costs, reducing a kilowatt per hour to five cents.
The managing director of Picfare Industries Limited Mr Mitul Jobanputra while addressing the congregation at the unveiling ceremony said that the factory which is estimated at 12.5 million USD an approximate of 44.5 billion UgX would avail employment to over 850 Ugandans and East Africans at large.
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“With the new investment, overall employment opportunities to Ugandans should stand at 850 jobs subject to full opening up of the education sector in Uganda and East Africa.”
He also went ahead to narrated how the company over the years has transformed from a small stationery producing company to one of the finest paper converter companies in East and Central Africa.
“Picfare started as a basic scholastic materials production factory to address the scarcity of almost everything that defined Uganda then and we were located at Plot 2, Second Street in Kampala and in 1997 we shifted operations to Njeru,” Mitul said.
With the revelation of the number of jobs the company was going to generate, the President became amused at this fact and said if there more thousand factories like Picfare, then unemployment in the country would be curbed down.
“You can see how the problem of jobs can be sorted. If you can get 10 such factories, they can employ 35000 people. If you have 1000 factories, then 3.5 million Ugandans will be employed,” Museveni concluded.
