This morning, Tuesday 6th December 2016, Hon. David Bahati, the Minister of State for Planning in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, presided over the hand over and launch ceremony of the Business Registration System to Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) from Norway Registers Development (NRD) at the UIA offices. NRD was contracted to develop the digital One Stop Centre integrating all investment relevant government entities for faster service delivery.
Hon. Bahati appreciated and congratulated UIA upon reaching this milestone. He said that the Business Registration System ‘is one step towards realizing our dream of having a One Stop Centre that will ease the facilitation of investors in Uganda’. He promised the attendees of the ceremony, who included representatives from some of the OSC entities and media, that in a few months, the OSC final solution will be fully completed. The Minister thanked the collaborating entities for their spirit of cooperation, which he said was critical to improving government service delivery. “With this newly completed Business Registration System, we are glad that an investor doesn’t have to come to Uganda to register a company. This can be done at your comfort in the UK or the USA and you come ready with your company to start business.” He said. ‘This is indeed Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo’ he added. He called upon investors to take advantage of the BRS as our partners (the consultants) complete the OSC in a few months’ time. “It is important that we update our stakeholders at every stage of our pathway towards realizing our OSC dream in order to ease and facilitate investment and grow our economy.” He added
The UIA acting Executive Director Mr. Lawrence Byensi informed the Minister that in January 2016, UIA launched the Minimum Viable Product for the One Stop Centre with only 2 services i.e. Business name search / reservation of a company name and Land title verification . ‘Today we are celebrating another milestone where our consultant has developed a Business Registration System specifically for Uganda Registration Services bureau (URSB).
Mr Byensi Lawrence, while receiving the system was grateful for the efforts that had been put into delivering the system that was being launched today. In response to a question regarding the emergence of a number of one stop centres, Mr Byensi, said it was good for same sector agencies to enhance their service delivery through creating easy access points or one stop centres. The One Stop Centre solution at the UIA was targeted at delivering Government services to investors in a timely and transparent manner aimed at reducing the cost and time spent by investors to set up business in Uganda.
Mr Joseph Kiggundu, the Director of the OSC said that the BRS was part of a much bigger electronic system at the One Stop Centre that will bring together functionality of various Government Agencies online to facilitate investors, both local and foreign. He thanked NRD (a team of 8), which was represented at the meeting by Mr. Andrius Kaikaris, for their partnership and efforts to amalgamate the services of seven agencies that include Uganda Registration Services Bureau,(URSB) Uganda Revenue Authority,(URA) Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control,(DCIC) National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), Kampala Capital City Authority(KCCA) Uganda Investment Authority(UIA) and Ministry of Lands and Housing Development (MOLHD) into a One Stop Centre for investors. “NRD has been a very cooperative and that’s why they have delivered the project on time. We are continuing with them to develop the bigger product that has linkages to other agencies like the URA and KCCA interfaces.” He said.
Mr Andrius Kaikaris, the NRD project manager told the Minister that they were happy to be part of this big significant project where all government services will be put together onto one online platform for easy access to information by investors.
In response to a query regarding the cost of the platform, Mr Kiggundu said it cost about Uganda shillings one billion.