East African Business Week

KAMPALA, UGANDA- The Bank of Uganda last week commenced with surveys on personal money transfers commonly known as workers' remittances and the quarterly enterprise survey for 2011.
The workers' remittances survey is for 2010. It will include surveys on money and items in kind received by resident households or individuals in Uganda from nonresident households.
According to Kenneth Egesa an assistant director at BOU, the bank conducts annual surveys on personal transfers and also compiles monthly estimates based on information from banks and international money transfer operators.
"The first national survey on workers' remittances was conducted in 2007. The survey collected data on remittances received in 2006. Similar surveys were conducted to measure remittances received in 2008 and 2009," explained Egesa.
He said the data from surveys supplements incomplete official data generated through returns submitted by commercial banks and licensed money transfer companies.
Egesa indicated that after getting the factual information, the surveys guide policy formulation, support the development of new financial products and services, feeds into the wider national diaspora strategy and the statistics generated is required for macro-economic management.
In 2009, Uganda received around US$778.3m. Most of the money was remitted from Europe at 37.2%, N. America at 28.3% and Africa at 24.8%. In 2008, US$732.4m was got much of it coming from Europe at 40%, Africa at 26% and North America at 25%.
About the enterprise survey, Dr. David Kihangire the executive director research at BOU said it will involve the harmonization of foreign private capital, business confidence, domestic resource costs and external trade services.
He added that the surveys will be conducted in a more coordinated manner and will contribute to making selected statistics more regular, timely, accurate and reliable.
"The burden of survey fatigue will be minimused because the selected surveys will be conducted simultaneously and will eliminate the need to conduct multiple interviews with the same private firm for different surveys," Kihangire said.