The Uganda social fund awards China Railway $110 million tower deal

Uganda’s state-controlled provident fund offered China Railway Group Ltd. a $110 million deal to construct a 32-story office tower in the capital, Kampala.

Construction will begin next month and will be finished in two to three years, the National Social Security Fund Chairman Patrick Byabakama Kaberenge said Tuesday in an interview. The project, which has been stalled for a decade, is part of NSSF’s plans to invest as much as $600 million in housing estates and office blocks, he said.

NSSF, which ranks itself as the biggest provident fund in East Africa, had UGX 9.98 trillion ($2.66 billion) of assets under management at the end of June. At least 70 per cent of its investments are in fixed income, 25 per cent in equities and the rest in real estate.

NSSF is lobbying the government to revise Ugandan laws to allow investment outside East Africa to boost its income, Kaberenge said. The fund posted UGX 1.6 trillion of profit in the 12 months through 30 June.

The body’s membership may grow to at least five million in five years from just over two million people presently if laws are amended to allow companies with less than five employees to register them, he said. Uganda has a working population of about 15 million of an estimated 40 million people, he said.