He said the ‘Real Economy’ is the economy that deals with the nine basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, security, physical infrastructure (the railways, the roads, the electricity, the telephones), health infrastructure (hospitals etc.), the education infrastructure (schools, etc.) as well as the teaching of numeracy, literacy, skilling and intellectuality and the spiritual work (churches, mosques, radios, TVs).

Ministry of Finance relief measures

He also outline 11 measures Ministry of Finance will take to provide relief to individual and businesses to offset the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Measures from Ministry of Finance

(i) Allow corporations including small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to delay payment of corporation tax or presumptive tax for taxes due between April and June 2020 and for tourism, manufacturing, horticulture and floriculture to defer until September 2020;

(ii) Defer payment of Pay-As-You Earn (PAYE) tax by those sectors which are most affected until September 2020;

(iii) Waiver of interest on tax arrears;

(iv) Support to water and electricity utilities in order to ensure continued supply of these essential services to consumers during the period April to June 2020;

(v) Expedite payment of outstanding VAT refunds;

(vi) Payment of domestic arrears for goods and services supplied to Government by the private sector;

(vii) For those unable to pay their loans, Government through the Bank of Uganda has already put in the gazette the measures to support businesses; including allowing extension of repayment periods, postponement of loan repayment for a limited period, relaxing the conditions for non-performing loans, reduction of reserve funds commercial banks are required to keep with Bank of Uganda and creating a special liquidity facility to rescue businesses that are not able to meet operational costs due to low demand or reduced production due to COVID-19;

(viii) Capitalisation of Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) with Ug Shs.

100 billion to enable Government to invest in strategic areas;

(ix) Boosting funding to Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI) in FY 2020/21 to continue with innovation research and incubation of business start-ups.

(x) Securing funding for the development of Kampala Industrial Business Park at Namanve and for power transmission and substations for Mbale, Kapeeka, Bweyogerere, Kasese, Soroti, Luzira, Jinja and Mbarara industrial parks; and

(xi) Provision of additional UGX 300 billion immediately to boost agricultural production and productivity for seedlings, fertilizers, irrigation, storage facilities and value addition.

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