Investing in tourism has immediate and massive returns- Minister Mugarra tells parliament as he pitches for more UGX97 bn

The Minister of State for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Hon. Martin Mugarra has requested that his ministry be allocated an additional UGX97 billion on top of the proposed UGX214.5 billion budget for the 2023/2024 financial year.

He told Parliament’s Committee on Tourism, Trade and Industry that the money is needed to finance the underfunded priorities in the ministry as well as Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC), Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) and Uganda Hotel and Tourism Training Institute (UHTTI). 

He said this is critical to get the sector back on track and sustain the pre-Covid-19 momentum towards broader 2040 national targets. 

“I am more confident that a decision to prioritise funding to tourism is the most cost-effective, timely and feasible economic strategy that our government can take,” Muggara told the Committee on April 11th 2023.

He added that the ministry has developed a strategy that will see tourism foreign exchange earnings increase to USD 5.9 billion annually by 2028 and also achieve the Vision 2040 target of USD 12 billion in annual tourism foreign exchange earnings by 2040.

“This strategy requires a funding of UGX440 billion annually but the returns are relatively immediate and massive,” said Mugarra.

Sam Mwandah, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) also appearing the same committee said that his organisation requires an increase in the agency’s ceiling of Non-Tax Revenue (NTR) from UGX106.7 billion to UGX140 billion in the 2023/2024 financial year. 

He said the request was based on the projected NTR collections of over UGX150 billion by the agency. 

“We are not asking the Ministry of Finance to provide this money in the budget, they can just raise the ceiling,” he said.

He said that the increase will be used in the upgrade of protected areas, staff accommodation, Rhino translocation, electric fence maintenance, valley dams construction and boundary surveillance and maintenance.

According to official government statistics, the Uganda Tourism Satellite Account – Measuring The Contribution Of Tourism To The Economy Of Uganda 2023 report, in 2019, inbound tourism generated UGX 1.66 trillion while Ugandans spent an estimated UGX4.68 trillion travelling outside the country, creating a tourism trade imbalance with the rest of the world estimated at UGX2.9 trillion. 

The direct contribution of tourism to GDP (3.64 %) is comparable with Livestock (3.6 %), forestry (4.0 %) and education (4.3 %) and much higher than transportation and storage (3.4 %), human health and social work activities (3.2 %), financial and insurance activities (2.7 %) among others.

In 2019, tourism’s direct contribution to employment was estimated at 14.7 % of total employment meaning that at least 1 in 10 persons employed is directly employed in tourism. 

The Tourism sector directly employed 1,559,147 persons in FY 2016/17 out of which 739,573 persons (47.4 %) were employees while 819,574 persons (52.6 %) were self-employed.