The Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) on Thursday signed a memorandum of Understanding with the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU), Agriculture Business Initiative (aBi) and Stanbic bank to undertake a study that will identify linkages between the agriculture sector and oil and gas sector.
This comes at heels of a major breakthrough where Uganda and international oil companies signed the Final Investment Decision (FID) on Tuesday February 1, 2022, a move that means players in the sector have committed to fund and commence the actual activities leading to first oil.
L-R. Emma Mugisha, (Stanbic bank), Dr. Sarah Ssewanyana (EPRC), Ernest Rubondo (PAU), and aBi’s Mona Muguma Ssebuliba after signing MOU for a study linkages of the agriculture sector to the oil and gas sector
Dr. Sarah Ssewanyana, the EPRC Executive Director said, “the Centre was proud to be part of this partnership and pledged quality [research] out of this.” She added that the Centre “will deliver the assignment on time.”
Ernest Rubondo, the PAU executive director, said studies on linkages between oil and gas and different sectors are critical especially because the aspect of linking oil and other sectors of the economy is expected to generate up to $8bn for the country.
“This is in addition to the earnings of Ugandans and Ugandan enterprises will earn from providing goods and services expected to be 40% of the investment of $15bn – $ 20bn. This is in addition to the revenue the country will earn from the sale of its crude oil,” he said.
Mona Muguma-Ssebuliba, the chief executive aBi Finance, said they were “proud to be part of an initiative aimed at harnessing agribusiness opportunities in Uganda’s oil and gas sector. This will consequently increase income and employment to Ugandans”.
Rubondo said over 160, 000 workers will be required at the peak of oil and gas project and up to one million people will be attracted by the activities of oil and gas in the Albertine graben region to participate in various activities and the aspect of food will be important.
Agriculture is particularly important because communities where oil is to produced predominantly depend on the sector for survival. Seeing how they can leverage on the oil opportunity to boost their income will be particularly handy.
EPRC Executive Director Dr. Sarah Ssewanyana
Meanwhile Dr. Ssewanyana said there was also need to study the inter-sectoral linkages vis-à-vis the oil and gas sector
She said: “We appreciate that we will look at the linkages between the oil sector and the agriculture sector. Other studies have been done on tourism, education … We see that at the moment, we are still trying to look at individual sectors and oil but in future, we need to have [studies on] inter-sectoral linkages such that we can be able to see what happens.”
Uganda has up to 6.5 billion barrels of oil with up 1.5 billion barrels recoverable or commercially viable.
Feature photo credit: The Spruce