Winnie Ngabirwe, the coordinator of Publish What You Pay PYP Uganda, says the move is welcome because it opens the oil and gas sector in Uganda to citizen scrutiny. She says dealing in the oil and gas sector will no longer remain secretive as they have been in the past.
The facility located in Bugolobi targets to train 1600 Ugandans annually in drilling, specialized welding for the pipelines, refineries and environment safety skills among others.
It is emerging that citizens and international oil companies have found it difficult to meet the 48 percent equity participation requirements with hardly three years left to the 2020 target for first oil production.
Energy Minister Eng Irene Muloni says 40 companies expressed interest in the refinery after Russian consortium Rostec Global Resources pulled out. She explains that eight out of the 40 companies have been engaged and that three of the eight could be selected to take up the refinery work.
Key areas the service providers want government to empower locals in include knowledge and skills development, procurement, and transparency especially information sharing.
