Ugandan contractors urged to come forward for UN's procurement budget

Over 70 Ugandan service and goods providers attended the UN Business Seminar in Entebbe, Wakiso District for the discussion on how to scale up the number of domestic contractors as well as build capacity for sustainable engagement between UN and suppliers. 

Paulin Djomo, the UN Regional Service Centre Entebbe director, revealed that in the last year, Ugandan service providers only supplied goods and services worth $33 million, which was less than one per cent of the (-+)Shs18 trillion procurement volume. 

“The UN Secretariat procurement volume from Ugandan suppliers was $33.07m in 2022. More than 6,486 Ugandan suppliers have registered on the United Nations Global Marketplace at various levels but we need more,” Djomo said.

He urged Ugandan service providers to commit to finding ways to sustainably increase their share, noting that on average, the UN Secretariat processes about 66,000 commercial invoices annually. 

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The UN Regional Service Centre Entebbe is a shared service centre that provides a number of services such as administration, logistics, information and communications technology to more than 18 UN missions in various countries on the continent including the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, DR Congo, Libya, Cameroon and Nigeria. 

This coverage offers Ugandans an opportunity to stake UN procurement as a key revenue earner. The top five procurement items include logistics (transport and storage), industry, industrial cleaning, building and construction and IT. 

“The number of Ugandan suppliers is very small. We would like to see an increase of Ugandan contractors doing business with us,” he said.  

In 2021, the UN published procurement data which indicated that the total procurement volume from Ugandan suppliers amounted to $186.6 million. The UN is supplied by about 193 countries and Uganda ranks 37th despite hosting the centre.

The Minister of Trade, Francis Mwebesa said the Ugandan business community must toil to utilise these opportunities to build their income, increase employment, and boost the domestic economy by increasing the volume of trade with the United Nations.