Uganda Perspective

The National Motto: “We Are Not Organized"

I need to take a break from The Reality of AIDS for a moment to get something off my chest. Why is it, with Uganda's tremendous oversupply of highly educated people, all those engineers, consultants, architects and scientists – and access to the world’s expertise just for the asking - why can’t they build a road?

Take a look at the photo included here. This is a brand new road in Mbarara that collapsed earlier this month. There is a “bypass” in Kampala that was supposed to be completed for the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting in Uganda a year ago and is not finished yet. A 60-mile road from Kabale to Kisoro, under construction for over a year, a very very expensive and very needed project, has been graded and smoothed but is not yet paved – and is washing away while it waits for macadam. The main roads in Kampala are paved while all others – thousands of miles of them connecting neighborhoods and back streets are dirt, eroded with ruts up to three feet deep.  Dodging potholes, people die on the Kampala-Mbarara Road every week. Here is a typical wreck.

Yet, the President vows major new road projects in the next two years. “It will help our economy,” he says. He’s said it before and he is right. But it’s all for naught if the roads don’t last more than a month.

“We are not organized” could be the nation’s motto. The chaos of society here is part of its charm for visitors, but it wears thin for people who live here. Nothing is maintained – half the solar/wind gizmos attached to light poles to impress CHOGM attendees are broken. The Nile River dam in Jinja that supplies most of the nation’s electricity is not “wukking” due to lack of maintenance so another dam is being built. To a nation desperately trying to build its economy, this one seems to be trying to fly with porous wings.

Traveling the only route from Mbarara to Kamwenge and getting a “road massage” as the car tackled the ruts, I saw a – wonder of wonders – a yellow Caterpillar grader parked alongside the road. I asked the driver why the machine was sitting idle when clearly the road needed grading. He said, “Oh, that is just the government responding to the local council. They want the road fixed.” He shrugged. “The government sends a machine and a man. The man grades just enough to show he has done something. Then he siphons the diesel out of the tank, sells it and spends the rest of his day in the bar. The next day there is no fuel so he cannot continue. What is he to do?”

Well, I thought, while he’s sitting in the bar, he could revise the national anthem to something like, “O, Uganda, We Are Not Organized.” There. I feel much better now.

Wanted: Americans With Guts

Every time I go to Uganda, I wonder “Where are the Americans?”

It’s not white faces I seek. There are plenty of white-skinned preachers and missionaries, government people and aid workers. But where are the business people? This country is bursting with opportunity and the government is pleading for foreign investment, yet the only established American enterprises I find are Citibank, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Google and Micosoft. The Texas Cowboy Grill is owned by a guy from Lebanon. And while Americana is everywhere – pirated DVDs and knockoff jeans, American-inspired production is not.

In 2005, I asked the United States Ambassador to Uganda Jimmy Kolker why there doesn’t seem to be an American business presence here. “It is hard to do business here,” he said. “Electricity costs are about the highest in the world and the supply is erratic. Transportation is difficult.” Whine whine whine. When prospectors headed to Alaska to look for gold, they weren’t hindered by lack of electricity.  When railroads were built across America, they didn’t worry about transportation.

“Uganda has great resources,” he said. “… an educated population, low labor costs, and good telecom infrastructure which makes it a good place for call centers such as those found in India and Ghana. The agricultural environment makes this an ideal place for growing and processing food products and ingredients. A Kansas firm recently invested $1 million in a flour mill. Nearly all the vanilla extract we buy in the US comes from Uganda, more than $20 million a year. They are also exporting tilapia to the U.S. and garments. It’s start.”

A start.

The Chinese will open an auto assembly plant in Masaka this January.  Indians run vast sugar and tea plantations. Moammar Qadafi has opened a combination mosque/university/shopping mall. The Aga Khan is building eco-lodges. Pearl Flowers, another Indian operation will export 90 million stems - over $10 million worth of cut flowers from 25 hectares of greenhouses in Rubaare to Europe in the next year.  American could rebuild the railroad here and make a fortune in freight.  We're on the equator where there is a vast need and a vast market for solar panels & photovoltaic roofing sheets.  Huge tracts of land are available to grow crops for ethanol.  Clothing manufacturing?  Absolutely – thousands of skilled people ready to go to work.  Kampala needs coffee shops, good fast food, a decent bakery, better distribution systems, better food processing- stuff we’re really good at.  If America doesn’t stake its claim in this mother lode of a place, we will be sorry for it.  Come on, Cowboy, giddyup.

Hey, Economist! We’re Over Here!

Finally, at last, a world-class Western business publication has noticed that Africa is a vast place of opportunity.  In its October 11, 2008 issue, an extensive article in The Economist entitled Opportunity Knocks highlights places on the continent where commercial enterprise is thriving. Though it is very authoritative in a looking-down-your-nose sort of way, I have two gripes with this report.  First, it talks about Africa as one place; it is actually 48 places.  And second, they completely overlooked Uganda as a land of raw, unbridled opportunity and the remarkable economy that has emerged there.

This must drive Emmanuel Tumusiimwe Mutebile nuts. Mutebile is Governor of the Bank of Uganda. The Governor is described as “a hulking, hard-drinking hammer of a person, the chief architect of Uganda’s success story and the greatest contributor to Africa’s struggle against poverty in his generation” – all in the same sentence by author Sebastian Mallaby in his book The World’s Banker (Penguin Press). Oxford educated and with more than 30 years at the helm of a ship in ever-turbulent seas, Mutebile is also a gracious host and candid about his country’s accomplishments.

I spoke with the Governor at his home on Kololo Hill and asked about the Uganda economy. “It has taken us more than two decades,” he said. “But Uganda has reached a point with its financial and communications infrastructure to begin billing itself as the exception to the African stereotype. We were the first to conquer the AIDS epidemic. Our gross domestic product grows at more than 5% a year, 9% in 2007. Inflation is kept in check at 5% or less. The shilling gets stronger against the dollar and the Euro every year. And our people are saving money in banks more than ever before in our history and are rewarded with a 14% interest on their accounts. We have 12 active Rotary International Clubs in Kampala alone. Our East African trade alliance which includes Sudan,Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda is already  showing results. Then he added, “Would you like a glass of wine?” 

The Economist talks about Ghana and Mali and Mozambique as good-news countries, but omits Uganda which outshines them all.  In my next post, I’ll outline why I think Uganda is a land where vast fortunes can be made by anyone with guts enough to invest there.