President Museveni has hailed National Social Security Fund (NSSF) for growing from a small fund to one that now takes part in big investment projects in the country .
Speaking during the commissioning the shs1.4 trillion Lubowa housing project, Museveni hailed NSSF for helping to bring together little savings and growing them into something big.
“You can now hear that the collections from the workers and employers are now totaling to shs17 trillion. You can see that combining in small bits is producing big results. That message of collective savings is very important for everybody. You can save and do big things. That’s how capitalism grew. Ugandans should learn from this one,” Museveni said.
“This good work is only 10% of what will be done. In other words we shall have a new city here built by NSSF in these former coffee plantations which used to be here.”
According to the president, the biggest war now is on moving the population into the money economy.
“What NRM is struggling with is bringing whole society into money economy. By 1969, the households in money economy were only 4% and 96% were in subsistence production. When we came in, we talked about it but things not moving and by 2013 68% were still in non-monetary GDP. It has gone down to 39% . We now want to win over the remaining 39% and this is the strategic success we need. We are now moving well and once we have mobilized all the nine million homesteads to be involved in commercial production, everything will be well.”
He further lauds the initiative; “I am very happy with this project, as this is a good initiative and I want to congratulate NSSF for this big investment.”
The Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija applauded NSSF for having grown over the years into one of the exemplary public institutions in the country.
“The fund now constitutes 9% of Uganda’s GDP and total assets are shs17 trillion. It collects over shs1.6 trillion every year. This is awesome,”Kasaija said
According to NSSF Managing Director, Richard Byarugaba, the project will help solve the problem of housing in the country.
“There are about 13 million people in urban centers in the country .Over 50% of Ugandans by 2050 will be in cities and above 35 million people in total yet housing is an integral part in developing our nation. This project will reshape the future of housing in this country since it will have a multiplier impact,” Byarugaba said.
He noted that in the first phase of the project, 73.3 million dollars has been spent while employing over 1500 people directly and 3200 people indirectly.
“We have invested close to $31million on construction materials that have been sourced from local industries and have created over 1,500 direct jobs and 3,200 indirect jobs through construction of this project. These numbers will increase as we implement the next eight phases” he said.
Byarugaba said the units are to be sold on a rent-payment model where one pays a small percentage of the total cost of the unit and starts living in it as he pays rent and on completion of the money, they officially own it.
The entire NSSF Lubowa housing project will have 2,740- housing units including villas, town houses, bungalows and apartments located in Lubowa, Wakiso District along Entebbe road.
According to the NSSF Managing Director, the entire project named Solana Lifestyle and residences, is a self-sustaining satellite city with mixed-use housing and commercial developments on approximately 600 acres of the Fund’s owned land in Lubowa.
“The project will offer world class facilities to live, work, shop, stay and play. When completed, it will be the largest project in East Africa, comprising of 2,750 residences including apartments, townhouses, bungalows, and villas. It will also comprise associated amenities, commercial retail space, office space, a school, a hospital, leisure and commercial centres, police and fire stations, places of worship, green buffer zones, a series of four parks along the riverine system, among others,” Byarugaba said.
He noted that the project will have additional services and infrastructure include electrical and street lighting, wastewater treatment plant, security , communication system, and a road network.
Construction of phase one and two comprising of an initial 306 housing units and project infrastructure commenced in December 2017 and is ready for sale.
According to forecast, it was revealed that the project will be completed in 10 years.
