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Arua, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda Services Registration Bureau (URSB) has embarked on the mass registration of informal businesses in the West Nile region. The move is aimed at addressing business informality among entrepreneurs and small business owners in the sub-region and the entire country.
During a stakeholder engagement for the West Nile sub-region hosted by Arua district, Alex Anganya, the Deputy Registrar General Finance and Administration at URSB, emphasized the critical role of formalization in achieving the National Development Plan (NDP) goals and increasing household incomes.
Anganya highlighted that the large informal sector, estimated at around 53.5% of the country, poses a challenge to economic growth.
Hope Okeny, a member of the URSB Board, emphasized that the development is devoid of bureaucratic hurdles and has been simplified for entrepreneurs and businesspeople to easily comprehend.
The mass business registration campaign, branded “kiri easy, formalize today,” aims to enroll 873,546 businesses by the end of the 2026/27 financial year. Charles Ichogor, the Arua Resident City Commissioner (RCC), expressed confidence that the initiative will enhance the competitiveness of small-scale business owners, enabling them to participate in government tenders and bidding processes and access credit from financial institutions.
Last September, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Norbert Mao, launched the mass registration of businesses initiative to simplify the registration process, raise awareness about the benefits of formalization, and spur economic growth.
According to records at the Uganda Services Registration Bureau, at least 535,000 informal businesses have been registered across the country thus far.
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