President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who is also Commander-in-Chief of the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) has commissioned NEC-Streit, an Armoured Vehicle manufacturing and assembling plant in Nakasongola.
President Museveni congratulated the team from Streit Group for fulfilling their idea of setting up the plant in Uganda and thanked the Managing Director of NEC, Lt Gen James Mugira for helping the team get all the required resources and support to set up the plant.
Museveni further said the vehicles will solve many problems; the rich who want to armour their cars, banks which need to carry money safely as a way of ruling out imports by using the capacity in Uganda.
He congratulated the National Enterprise Corporation for heeding to the advice of creating capacity for Uganda’s defence industry. “Gradually, NEC has gone into other areas of defence needs including research and development. They have used the method of joint partnerships to create additional capacity,” said the President.
The President promised to direct the Minister of Works and Transport, Hon. Gen Edward Katumba Wamala to link up with companies which are constructing roads in the areas of Hoima to come and work on the roads in Nakasongola, where the various factories are located.
Earlier on, Museveni commissioned a 500-Kilowatt solar power under the Southgate Renewable energy project, surgical medical masks production facility, oxygen and nitrogen production plant and the Veba wood working machinery for making machine tools which he said is an important step in autonomy.
The Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Wilson Mbadi while speaking at the ceremony thanked the President and calling the factory a milestone in the Defence technology project. “I want to thank you for your astute guidance in defence capability and capacity development for self-reliance which is a very important virtue of professionalism,” said Gen Mbadi.
Gen Mbadi added that one of the UPDF’s functions is to be a productive force to contribute to national development by building a robust self-reliant defence industry as part of the journey to continue building a modern, professional, effective, efficient and accountable force capable of securing Uganda to support the growth of the economy.
The Chairman Streit Group, Guerman Guotorov expressed commitment towards working with Uganda in developing and improving the security capacity of the country in different areas. “All the products which are going to be produced I can proudly say are made in Uganda,” said Guerman.
Lt Gen James Mugira, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Enterprise Corporation in his remarks said various stakeholders such as the Uganda Police, Bank of Uganda, Private Security Organizations, VIPs and members of the business community will benefit from the services of NEC-Streit services and urged government to come up with a policy requiring public institutions to buy from the plant as long as the vehicles meet the required standards.
Lt Gen Mugira further said the entire factory was constructed by the NEC-Construction Works and Engineering Company utilizing the engineers of the UPDF. “I want to thank the NEC construction team led by Engineer Brian Buhanda and the UPDF team of young engineers led by Lt Bright Ruzindana, they did a commendable job in a very short time,” added Lt Gen Mugira.
Present at the function were; Cabinet and State Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Service Chiefs, Generals and UPDF Officers, members of sister security agencies, dignitaries from partner States, Management and Staff of Streit group.
