WELL DONE ON KARUMA BUT …

Last month the 600 MW Karuma dam was commissioned by President Yoweri Museveni too much fanfare.

"The dam which increases the country’s installed capacity to about 2000MW, is a marvel of engineering design and should set us up as a major player in alleviating the power deficiencies in our part of the world...

But the story of the dam’s development should serve as a cautionary tale and also a lesson to prevent such disasters recurring in the future.

The dam whose construction begun in 2013 was supposed to be commissioned in 2018, so it is six years behind schedule. Such delays have real money consequences, for example, that we started repaying the loan before we had evacuated a single Megawatt, because its five year grace period had expired. The delays alone suggest that the dam’s promise of cheap power may actually be a mirage. Time will tell.

The delay had its origins in the energy ministry, which so botched up the contracting of the construction of the dam and that of Isimba, further upstream, that sympathies are in order for Uganda Electricity Generation Company Ltd (UEGCL) who have been charged with running the two installations.

Those in charge of contracting for the billion dollar project flouted procurement procedures, ignored judicial, parliamentary and cabinet oversight and it took the president to exercise some Solomonesque justice to award the contact for the building of Karuma to SinoHydro and that of Isimbe dam to CWE. If the ministry officials had had it their way the award would have gone the other way.

Out of that chaotic process have resulted in cost overruns, shoddy work and a multitude of issues that UEGCL will take years – hopefully not generations, to unfurl.

As a reminder, the people of Uganda are poor, but Uganda is not poor...

Beyond our benign climate, arable soils and bequtifuul scenary, about a decade ago an aerial survey of our mineral wealth showed that if we wer to fully exploit the minerals under our feet, we would have to move all Ugandans out of the country first. We are that rich.

The reason the people of Uganda however continue to wallow in poverty, is because of our inability to exploit this our natural endowment for our benefit.

The development of Karuma dam is a case in point.

The site’s potential of 600MW or more, has been seating there for eons unexploited. And when we decided to do something about it, public officials charged with overseeing these assets, in trust for all Ugandans, put their personal enrichment first and the people of Uganda be damned. In more serious countries these people would be strung from trees rather than awarded medals.

But the drama is not over yet.

Uganda’s peak time demand is about 800 MW, which means at the best of times 1200MW of capacity goes begging. Painfully we pay for that power whether we use it or not.

Even in Karuma and Isimbe, where we do not have onerous power purchase agreements, the creditors get paid whether you use the power or not.

"The challenge with the electricity sector, like other sectors in Uganda is that we all work in our individual silos, with no seeming regard to ecosystem around us...

One of the delays to the dam completion, apart from all the remedial work that had to be done because no sooner had the dam been built than huge fissures started showing up all over the dam, was that we had not completed the transmission lines to evacuate the power.

One would imagine that if we are to build a dam, we need to start planning simultaneously for how that power should be evacuated. One would imagine that Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (UETCL), whose job it is to evacuate the power, would be put on formal notice, with funding and timelines, beyond them reading about it in the press. It did not happen.

So UETCL only just finished the transmission lines last year, five years after the original date of commissioning of the dam.

We would be forgiven if the government was run by some bumbling fools from an earlier era. We would shake our heads, click our tongues and understand. But that is far from the truth.

In a country where less than half the households have access to the national grid, this kind of mismanagement is criminal. While it is difficult to see the cost to the people who have not had power in generations, we can see by the transformation in the lives of those who have access, to get a sense of what the rest are missing.

"The net effect is that Karuma like Kiira, is in danger of being a white elephant, too big to be swept under the carpet, but an example of how not to develop a project never the less...

The management at the energy ministry, UEGCL and UETCL are relatively new, as they all came in when the Karuma project had been set in motion, so they maybe exonerated from the mess. But as Ugandans we expect better from them and value for money for all these beautiful dams that do not generate power.

BIG COMPANIES, BE KINDER TO SMALL COMPANIES

My friend Jack is at his wits end for what to do for his business. While the rest of us entered the job market, Jack opted to go off on his own, starting a market research company at its core, he branched off into deliveries and event management. He has done everything in between.

He has made a better than average living for himself over the years.

But lately he is beginning to feel the walls closing in on him and long term survival seems to be fading away.

While URA the bane of every small businessman, have something to do with it, it’s more to do with the payment cycle of his big clients.

For many of his clients he does the work and then invoices for the job after it is done. The problem is that the big companies pay for work done up to 120 days after invoicing. So his life is an unenviable cycle of looking for financing to do the job, then chasing payments from the big companies (it is not paid automatically during the stipulated time) and then ducking and dodging from URA, money lenders and any number of debtors...

After all is said and done, and yes there is the company official who wants his cut to get the job and the one whose palm you have to grease to ensure payment, he barely breaks even.

For the amount of stress and worry he juggles it is a wonder he has not greyed yet.

Government’s cash squeeze is causing a general slowdown in economic activity especially in the retail sector.

Not only is government cutting back on spending they owe the private sector over sh4trillion shillings, with some suppliers going unpaid for up to three years...

Government being the biggest consumer of goods and services, when it sneezes we all catch cold.

 But my friend Jack argues that that should not affect him. Many of his clients already have the cash; the telcos have most of their services prepaid for. The breweries? Try getting beers on credit at the depo. The banks are not only seating on stacks of money deposited with them but charge fees to keep  that money, so cash is not their problem.

I suspected that these 45-day plus delays of payment are a throwback to a time when company accountants used to pore over oversized legers, reconciling accounts from far flung reaches of the company and therefore need time to reconcile and then pay suppliers. It seems to me then, that with improved technologies, where reconciliations are done in real time, these time savings should have done away with these long waiting times suppliers are suffering.

But industry players say that is not true. Companies are managing their own cash flows to the detriment of the small man selfishly, plain and simple. A company holding on to monies for even a day can see them earn a point or two by placing those monies in a bank or conversely would mean they do not have to draw down their overdraft with the bank and incur additional financial costs.

And URA? The law is that you should pay your VAT on any invoice issued by the middle of the next month. So small businessmen are having to dig into their pockets or worse, borrow money to meet their tax obligations, invariably looping them into a vicious cycle of debt and tax default leading to tax evasion.

It is true that all over the world it’s the small businessman who is the biggest employer. But you have to fear for the fate of the worker in the small business if the big businesses, not to mention government, is treating small businesses like unwanted orphans.

In corporate Uganda and the world over the buzzword is

ESG (environmental, social and governance). At its core is the realization by businesses that profit is not everything and that they have a wider responsibility beyond their shareholders, to ensure that more stakeholders benefit from their good fortune...

It common sense that of you are affluent in a see of poverty in the short term your progress will hit a ceiling and in the long term the  impoverished will eat you – literally and figuratively. So it make sense to ensure in your pursuit of profit everybody around you ´get a fair shake.

So, featured prominently in your glossy sustainability reports can you, big companies, spare space for the improved treatment of the small businessman, preferably ahead of the new boreholes you have installed in some obscure village or the new lick of paint at XYZ primary school. Thank you.

 

NSSF MUST CONTINUE ITS STELLAR RUN

Last week National Social Security Fund (NSSF) last week paid 11.5 percent interest on its members savings held with the Fund by the end of June.

This continues NSSF’s tradition of paying double digit interest, which they have done in all but one year in the last decade.

They have managed these rates by adopting a conservative asset allocation – almost 80 percent of the sh22trillion portfolio is committed to government paper and keeping their costs under control – they report cost of one percent of assets and a cost to income ratio of eight percent. It helps of course that they have the law on their side and they have not been bash full in ensuring compliance. Member contributions came in at sh161b a month in the year to June 2024.

"NSSF is also only one of three companies – the other being MTN and Umeme, that have crossed the sh2 trillion mark in revenues...

Total revenues were up 15 percent to sh2.53 trillion from sh2.2trilion in the previous year.

At an individual level the continued double digit interest rate means that at bare minimum member savings are doubling every seven years. This is because of the compound interest effect, that while members are earning those monies they cannot withdraw them, they added to their savings and subsequent interest is calculated on that interest.

While there has been some gnashing of teeth by members who want access to these monies, it is often times the best thing that happened to them, that this money is locked up for decades.

What is not widely known is that while the management has set themselves the target of paying two percentage points above the average ten year inflation rate, by law NSSF can pay a minimum of 2.5 percent. But even with that pitiful rate savers would still be winners as their employers, contribute double their contribution to the fund. The management commitment is a godsend for voluntary savers who cannot get comparable rates on the market.

More on that later.

"On a macro economic level NSSF is playing a major role in ensuring macro economic stability and that government remains in business through its participation in the government bond market. This invaluable contribution to the general economy goes understated but lays the framework for us to have low inflation and predictable returns. NSSF has about sh14trillion in bond holding in the region, but most of it is vested here in our market.

In addition NSSF has major interest in the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) where it holds about sh500b worth of stock in local companies whose total market capitalization is about sh10trillion. NSSF interest is more significant however as it has about a quarter of all shares available for trading.

During a recent news conference NSSF also announced it is looking to becoming a market maker, which would increase liquidity in the market while being very lucrative for the Fund. A market maker is often a entity who stands between buyers and sellers, who unlike brokers can hold on to shares for a period as they look for buyers. With its deep pockets NSSF would be well placed to carry out this role for the market where average daily turnover was sh300m.

As it stands now because most of the shares are held by institutions, who hold for the long term and have little interest in day-to-day trading, and so there is relatively low activity on the USE.

"The USE is the ideal place to start ones investment journey, as it requires low amounts of funds to participate and provides useful education on investment for anybody.

But probably more interesting is the growth of the unit trust funds in Uganda. Assets under management in the last quarter, which ended in June, grew by about sh300b to surpass the three trillion shilling mark. This from below sh500b five years ago.

By NSSF providing double digit returns these  unit trust funds are being forced to offer double digit returns, with the additional sweetener that funds are more readily available. One can withdraw money from most unit trusts within 24 hours accounting for their increased popularity.

This is a lesson for other sectors that have public participation, particularly health and education. If government services are below par, it opens the door for private participation, which is not a bad thing in itself, but the private players do not have a high bar to measure against, then therefore do not feel obligated to give much better services.

If the average public school or health facility was well equipped and staffed, they would be no room for the private sector and even if they came in they would have to come in with much better facilities and service to justify their fees.

If NSSF was paying below single digit interest you can rest assured the unit trusts would not try much harder to optimizer their members returns.

NSSF’s influence in our market extends beyond the good interest it pays the members to stabilization of the economy, financing government operations and moderating the private markets in which it participates.

As a result NSSF continued success is critical and not only for its members.

 

 

BUJAGALI TAX WAIVER MAKES SENSE FOR UGANDA

The story of Bujagali dam best illustrates the saying “No good deed goes unpunished”.

 A little background will put the Bujagali dam issue in better perspective.

At the beginning of the century government unbundled the Uganda Electricity Board (UEB) monopoly into its constituent parts of generation, transmission, distribution. It then leased its assets in generation and distribution and opened up the sector to private investors. Government then created Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) to oversee the liberalized sector.

As a result of these reforms about $4b (sh15.2trillion) has been invested in the sector since 2000.

While we now have unlimited power supply, a far cry from the daily loadshedding we were suffering before Bujagali dam was commissioned in 2012, it has come at a price.

"The pricing of finance for these investments have been high and understandably so. The perceived risk of investing in Uganda, which was emerging out of decades of instability, made the cost of finance high...

Now that we have unlimited supply the challenge is how to reduce the end user tariff, especially for business and industry. President Yoweri Museveni has made it his stated aim to bring it down to $5cents a unit of power.

In pursuit of this target government  helped Bujagali Energy Ltd (BEL) refinance their debt, which was helped by government offering a tax waiver on its corporate profit. This helped lower what Bujagali was charging for the power it generated.

The initial five year tax waiver lapsed in 2021/22 and parliament has been reluctant to renew it, giving two annual extensions pending an audit into Bujagali’s finances.

 "The continued refusal to allow the tax waiver has far reaching repercussions not only for our effort to lower local tariffs but also future investment in the sector and the economy at large...

According to the original power purchase agreement, of the $11cents BEL was charging, the larger proportion $6.7 cents went to debt repayment and shareholder return, $2.3 cents for taxes and government repayments and about $1.0 cents for operations, maintenance and administration.

The scope for reduction in the tariff is in refinancing the loan – extending the tenure of the loan or suing for a lower interest rate and waiving taxes. While these two did not bring the tariff below the magical $5cents it was a good start.

A denial of the tax would not necessarily hurt BEL as they would pass it on to the customer, raising the tariff.

But as a part of the condition of refinancing, the government of Uganda was supposed to offer the tax waiver for the duration of the loan, which now ends in 2032.

We may not take it seriously, but for businesses and countries that want to play on the bigger stage, reputational risk is a big deal. Reneging on a contract attracts reputational risk. Reputational risk can add a few percentage points on our loans, which could mean millions of dollars in additional interest payments.

While we appreciate parliament’s attempts at oversight of the electricity sector, we need to keep in mind we are playing in a bigger field, where our laxity on matters of reputation will be frowned upon.

It has happened before.

"The initial developer of the Bujagali dam, US firm AES Nile Power found their project stalled by parliamentary sniping and the heckling of environmentalists. Economic crisis in South America where AES had its other developments forced them to pull out of Uganda in 2002, pushing back the development of the dam. AES Nile Power would have completed construction by 2007, five years after they ground broke in 2002.

Building of the current dam started in 2008 and was completed in 2012.

While for us Africans we don’t take time seriously, in the global environment we operate in, time is money. It should come as no surprise to us that we often times get the short side of the stick in negotiations because we do not take time seriously.

We need to focus on the bigger picture. While BEL will enjoy tax relief, the ripple effect through the economy of cheaper power would be invaluable in improving living standards of Ugandan consumers.

 

THE MUSEVENI ECONOMIC LEGACY

Last week I was involved in an online conversation about the economic achievements of President Yoweri Museveni’s administration. The conversation was prompted by the impending 80^th birthday of the President, which happened on the weekend.

It is a subject that should and will be discussed well into the future.

A brief recap of history is important.

When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power in 1986 they found an economy in shambles, brought to its knees by the years of instability and economic contraction of the 1970s and 1980s.

"To resuscitate the economy, the NRM fought to bring inflation under control, privatized government parastatals to get them back into production and liberalised the economy to unlock individual initiative, which, up to that point, was discouraged by insecurity and suppressed by government monopolies. The government also worked to rehabilitate infrastructure and provide other public goods like security, health and education....

No less a figure than Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew in 1988, dismissed Uganda’s case as hopeless and did not think its fourtunes would be restored in a 100 years.

Since that January day in 1986 the economy has been on an unbroken growth streak, production has not only been restored but expanded, macroeconomic stability has been achieved and the economy is diversified away from an overreliance on coffee.

The economy still has a long way to go. The widening wealth disparity has to be addressed urgently, before it threatens national stability, by fighting corruption and increasing the productivity of the rural areas.

There is not enough space in this column to address all the achievements of the last four decades but off the top my head two initiatives were key in turning the economy around.

The first was ensuring security. This is critical to allow for investment by local and foreign businessmen. It would make no sense to invest in a home or enterprise if you are not sure that you will be alive next year or even the next day. The Kampala urban sprawl is evidence of this. 

In 1986 Kampala stopped at Kibuye roundabout in the south, Wandegeya in the north, Lugogo in the east and just before Natete in the west. As people have grown confident in the future of the house they have invested in homes and businesses that has grown Kampala more than tenfold from its 600,000 population in 1986.

The second was the liberalization of the economy. In those days there were government companies in everything from supermarkets to petrol stations, from housing estates to fishing boats. And all these were virtual monopolies in their sectors, ineffective, inefficient and draining the lifeblood from tax payer.

By privatizing these and opening the market to competition, government not only turned on the production taps but also harnessed the market to create sustainable growth.

Professor John Kay in his seminal book “The truth about markets” explained that the market is really a series of experiments by businessmen every minute, every day, every time. The experiments that work grow and those that don’t are dropped by the way side. Out of this chaos, creative destruction, which mirrors the evolutionary process, is born growth and wealth. No central authority anywhere in the world can replicate these multitude of experiments with any success, which is why governments all over the world fail at business.

People who pander for central control of the economy are often a small clique, who have failed in the market, but are connected to government and see government involvement as a way to get back in the game. It is to their benefit and not to the benefit of everyday man.

"Forced by necessity more than conviction the NRM liberalized the economy and in so doing unlocked the individual initiatives of local and foreign businessmen and the economy has been better for the experience...

Currently we are at a cross road.

While the market is the most effective mechanism for growing wealth it is probably the worst for distributing that wealth. Distribution of wealth is government’s role by taxing economic activity and using revenues to finance public goods. If the economy is growing as Uganda’s is but inequalities continue to persist and growth it is an indictment on government’s competence or lack of in the distribution of the wealth that is created.

Government distribution of wealth does not mean standing at the corner and dishing out money. Distribution often entails giving the population the means to take advantage of the economic opportunities that come with economic growth by keeping them safe, educating them, providing health services, access to markets through developing infrastructure, both hard and soft and for the most marginalized, a leg up by providing social security.

Museveni’s legacy will be cemented by the equitable distribution of the economic gains of the last 40 years.

As it is now the biggest beneficiaries are people living in urban areas, who are educated and can leverage this to get employment or compete in the market as businessmen. Given the system that the NRM uprooted that gave access to a few – there were barely 5000 students in University in 1986, often to the detriment of the majority, the beneficiaries continue to be a few.

"Going into the next four decades the economy must continue to grow, there can be no development without growth, but there has to be a more systematic and consistent effort to ensure this growth is shared out more equitably...

Happy birthday Mzee!

CHINA TOWN: A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

Last week China Town opened its doors for business and were swamped by hundreds of Ugandans.

It reminded me of a time when Shoprite opened for business at Ben Kiwanuka street and people bought everything off their shelves days before Christmas 2000. Interestingly most of the shoppers were traders who were buying goods in bulk and going on to sell them in their shops.

Local businessmen, then like now, complained about the new competition that they were practicing unfair competition and not sourcing goods locally. 

But prior to Shoprite’s entry, when Metro Cash & Carry opened shop at the UMA show ground, local traders were up in arms because among other things, they got their own customs bonded warehouse. Local traders saw this as favouritism and screamed blue murder.

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) at the time explained that Metro Cash & Carry was importing huge volumes, the example I remember was about toilet paper, and therefore deserved and could afford to maintain their own customs bonded warehouse.

"Our traders now like then, adopt a do-it-yourself approach and still import small quantities as opposed to if they came together, bulked their imports and benefitted from economies of scale...

In fact when China Town starts buying from local producers, they – local producers, may prefer to deal with them rather than the small traders, because they will take huge volumes at once. As for the customers they voted with their feet last week and will most probably continue to do so.

Many years ago this column listed Charlie Lubega as one of the savviest businessmen in Kampala. Lubega’s Ange Noire discotheque was on the cutting edge of entertainment technology, upgrading his equipment and the club’s ambiance regularly long before the competition in the form of Silk came to town.   

In so doing Lubega increased the barriers to entry, shutting out pretenders, while keeping his patrons wowed.

Our local traders can learn a thing or two from Lubega.

"You cannot stop the forces of competition, especially since your customers don,t care whether you are made in Uganda or not. What you can do is to understand the competition, present and potential and confront them or turn tail and run.

It is only in the last decade or so that we have got locally owned supermarket chains to which a lot of middle class Kampala have gravitated towards. While they maybe pricier than downtown offerings, middle class Kampala has decided the higher prices are a small price to pay, rather than fend off pick pockets and car part thieves, looking for parking, pushing and shoving with the unwashed masses.

Our local business have been learning over the last three decades, in a most practical way the meaning of competitive advantage.

They have learnt that businessmen with better financing and more efficient supply chains can squeeze them to the periphery of the economy, where the pickings are thin and unsustainable.

What they have not quite mustered is how to respond to this existential threat.

It is easy to appeal to government and nationalistic sentiment, but once these have lost their buzz, you will still be faced by the same overwhelming competitors.

By the way, the government will make the appropriate sounds, but only for a while, because its interest is that Ugandan consumer can get goods cheaply and the ease with which they can collect revenue from these multinationals, as opposed to going door to door in kikuubo and being threatened by strikes when local traders don’t like EFRIS.

So what is the local businessman to do? Like Ange Noire’s Lubega they need to adopt a long view. They need to ask themselves  what they can do, which no foreigner can do better than them and control that space or at worst find a way of collaborating rather than fighting these forces of competition, which are here to stay.

I don’t think we import matooke, and I can count on one finger how many foreigners are growing matooke locally. The question would be how we can improve our production and distribution so that no one can take that away from us. Because believe it or not someone can produce matooke cheaper and package it better somewhere in the world and we would be a ready-made market for them. They will come and wipe out our matooke industry and we will wonder what happened. You laugh.

Secondly, they need to be at the forefront of promoting efforts to increase demand in Uganda. One of the reasons South Africa has the most advanced financial system on the continent is because during apartheid when everyone was not buying South Africa, they made local resource mobilization a priority and credit easily available to everybody so the internal market could sustain their businesses.

While credit is a double edged sword it allows consumers to live beyond their means and in so doing support local industry. As it is now we do not have enough local demand to build really robust industries.

So for instance while my kids need 2 liters of milk a day, I only buy half a liter because that is all the cash I have. If however I could buy the rest on credit, my children would be healthier, develop a taste for milk and become stronger consumers in the future.

"The competition is coming whether we like it or not. It is futile to fight it by trying to close it out. We can however focus on what we have a competitive advantage in, sharpen that competitive advantage and make it unattractive for others to even think about competing. Leave the contested ground to others. That way we will be winners....

Government on its part should map out these areas of competitive advantage and look to support entrepreneurs in those areas.

NIGHT AMPURIRE; START WHERE YOU ARE, WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

A few weeks ago a local TV station highlighted the plight of Night Ampurire, a market vendor in Kitoro. One of many market vendors, Ampurire’s stood out because of her rickety pickup, which she used to transport her water melons for sale at Kitoro market on Entebbe road.

The pickup she uses for her deliveries has to be a wonder of the world. Badly beaten up, its tire bald as a babies bottom, the foam all that is left of the car’s upholstery, it squeaked and groaned with every move.

It is a car where you have to have a prayer on your lips when you turn the ignition, you never know on any given day whether it will start or not.

"As if the precariousness of the car’s condition was not bad enough, Ampurire had to juggle shifting manual transmission gears with placating her four month old baby, who sometimes rode in her lap and sometimes she held her down with one hand in the passenger seat, while steering with the other...

In the accompanying interview she told how she saved for the car, which she bought for sh3.5m, how she repairs it herself and how it is enables her look after her family. She has four children.

Her story came to light again last week when telecom company MTN gifted her a new pickup.

 Ampurire’s story left me in awe of the woman, her indomitable spirit and unflappable will to make something of herself, despite her obvious personal limitations, a backfiring economy and the public around her, which did not give her half a chance.

When faced with hardship financial or otherwise the easier thing to do is to lie down and die. It takes a certain will to look around and use whatever it is you have available, to climb out of your hopelessness and misery. And it is always impossible until you do it.

My favourite story of a nation that has pulled itself up by the bootstraps, is that of South Korea.

 After the Korean war, which split the peninsula into North and South Korea, the two countries had been literally razed to the ground.

The market oriented South Korea faced with this predicament, determined that to pull themselves out of the poverty they would have to export to foreign markets. This made sense because the poverty in their internal market could not be a driver of economic growth, at least for a few years after the war.

But South Korea with barely any natural resources to speak of, had nothing to immediately sell to foreign markets. Or so it seemed.

They sold the only thing the 20 million South Koreans had in abundance and that was a renewable resource – human hair.

Since then South Korea has grown into a high tech hub with such brands as Samsung, LG Electronics, Kia and Hyundai now driving their economic growth.

"Ampurire is not the only one hustling out there. For every Ampurire who captures the national imagination there are easily 10,000 just like her – the real salt of the earth, working anonymously,  keeping their noses to the grinding stone and trying to make an honest living....

We know that while the economy continues to grow, the benefits of this growth are not enjoyed equitably. A lot of this has to do with government corruption and the subsequent failure of service delivery, which makes it difficult for the lesser of our society to climb the ladder.

But as people like Ampurire show us that with improved access to market, we need not wait for government to educate and treat us to climb out of poverty.

But as we saw with Ampurire’s story it is not a walk in the park. Individuals will have to gird their loins, take the leap of faith to take advantage of the opportunities within our reach.

Another major lesson from Ampurire’s story is that whether we try or we don’t, the time will pass. Ampurire decided to save for her car, dropping any coins she could spare in a savings box until she had accumulated enough to buy the car.

Whether she saved or did not save, the time would have passed. And while she has been struggling with a car that was worse for wear, it is safe to say she would have been worse off had she not had the car. Of course the only reason she crossed MTN’s radar was because of the car.

Interestingly most of us have discounted all the blood and sweat she shed and think she is lucky. We should know better.