BUSINESS COMMUNITY QUESTIONS ROLE OF ARUA CITY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

By Isaac Jerry Munguci

Arua City

The underperformance of Arua City Chamber of Commerce is raising concerns among the business community over its reliability in promoting businesses in the city given the political power wrangles among the key leaders.

Arua City Chamber of Commerce is a branch of Uganda National chamber of commerce and Industry, the oldest umbrella organization for the private sector in Uganda founded in 1933.

According to Obeta Moses Drakua the chairman Arua city business community, the Chamber has registered scanty success in the City due to bureaucracy within the organization at the national level.
“The contributions of National Chamber of Commerce in the city here has been scanty. Unless you are a paid up member, you have no benefits in the National Chamber of Commerce, and, the national desk approves activities and supports them,” Drakua said.

The Chamber of commerce is mandated to among others bring the business community together, advocate for good business environment for entrepreneurs, and, link business communities to the government and other markets.

Caesar Draecabo Trinity a founding member of Arua city chamber of commerce blamed the little success of the chamber in the city on the huge leadership gaps.
“We who are in Arua city are a branch. We have not had the methods drawing the full benefit of being in chamber. This has basically been a leadership issue. The chamber of commerce has remained relevant. We must address the issue of leadership of Chamber of commerce,” Draecabo said.

Meanwhile, Ronald Debo the chairperson Arua City Chamber of Commerce in response attributed the limited contributions of the chamber to the consistent frustrations by politicians in the city.

“We had our plans to sit in office to achieve some milestones, one of them was to have a business dialogue in West Nile to be chaired by the NRM vice chair Al Haji Kigongo, and a politician blocked this asking who are you to invite the NRM vice Chairperson to Arua?” Debo responded.

Arua city chamber of commerce and industry currently consists of over 80 paid up members eyeing benefits and opportunities from the body. 
 
 
 
 

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