Uganda Development Corporation gets new boss

What you need to know:

The Uganda Development Corporation is the government of Uganda’s investment and development arm. It promotes and facilitates the industrial and economic development of Uganda. It is under the ministry of trade, industry and cooperative.

Mr Patrick Bitonder Birungi has been appointed the executive director of Uganda Development Corporation (UDC). He replaces Mr Emmanuel Mutahunga who has been acting in that position for about two years.
Until his appointment, Mr Patrick Birungi was the director Development Planning at the National Planning Authority (NPA).
Before joining the government planning agency in 2010, he worked in the academia and then with United Nation Development Programme, all in senior positions.

Mr Birungi, an economist by profession, also has a wide experience in research as exemplified by his role in key economic policies.
He was part of the team that conducted Presidential Economic Council (PEC) paper on recapitalizing the Uganda Development Bank. He played the same role on youth employment as well the mineral development in Uganda. He was also the team leader for the development of the National Development Plan III and before that team leader for the production of the National Development Plan II.

Although some of his critics are in awe of his public service record, most of them are unsure of whether his amiable experience in academia, United Nation and government is sufficient enough to see him negotiate a terrain that could have required a driver with a private sector navigation license.
Meanwhile, Mr Mutahunga returns to his previous position as the assistant commissioner in charge of external trade at the ministry of trade, industry and cooperative.