THE GASHUMBA-KAYANJA FEUD: PERHAPS CHRISTIANITY NEEDS THIS RECKONING

The most remarkable thing about Frank Gashumba's Shs500 million challenge to Uganda's miracle-working pastors is not the money. It is how quickly a question about healing became a confrontation over religious authority.

Last week, the outspoken social commentator challenged pastors, prophets and apostles who claim miraculous healing powers to accompany him to a hospital and demonstrate those powers on critically ill patients. He initially offered Shs200 million before raising the stakes to Shs500 million.

Gashumba did not initially name any particular pastor. Nevertheless, the backlash was swift, most notably from Pastor Robert Kayanja of Miracle Centre Cathedral, who publicly warned Gashumba of dire consequences, including death. Gashumba's family subsequently accused the pastor of extending curses to four generations of their descendants.

"What began as a challenge to substantiate extraordinary claims has degenerated into an ugly exchange involving spouses and children...

Beneath the noise lies an opportunity to examine Christianity, particularly the relationship between believers, pastors and God.

Perhaps this controversy is precisely what Ugandan Christianity needs.

Christians must distinguish faith in God from faith in those who claim to represent Him. Pastors are human beings, subject to the same weaknesses and failings as everyone else. Their calling, eloquence, wealth, popularity or ability to attract large congregations does not confer infallibility or prove divine approval.

Christianity has grappled with false prophets and religious opportunists since its earliest days. Jesus warned in Matthew 7:15 against false prophets who disguise themselves as sheep but are inwardly ravenous wolves, saying believers would recognise them by their fruits.

The implication is clear:

"Christians have a responsibility to scrutinise their religious leaders, not surrender their judgment to them...

The Apostle Paul reinforced this principle in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, urging believers to test everything and hold on to what is good. Questioning a pastor is not necessarily questioning God; discernment may be an expression of genuine faith.

This distinction seems to have been lost in the present controversy.

Gashumba says his criticism concerns people he considers fraudulent religious leaders, not God or Christianity. Pastor Kayanja maintains that the miracles associated with his ministry are genuine and come from God. His son has also emphasised that pastors themselves do not heal; only Jesus does.

That is an important theological distinction. If the power belongs to God, no pastor should feel personally threatened by questions about its exercise.

Gashumba's challenge nevertheless has limitations. Faith cannot be reduced to a laboratory experiment, and God cannot be summoned to perform miracles for a cash reward. Nor should seriously ill patients become props in a public spectacle...

But claims of miraculous healing, particularly where desperate people are encouraged to part with money or abandon medical treatment, should not be beyond reasonable scrutiny. There is a world of difference between believing that God can perform miracles and accepting that everyone who claims to perform them is telling the truth.

History offers a powerful lesson. In 1517, Martin Luther challenged the sale and promotion of indulgences, through which believers were offered remission of punishment for sins in exchange for payments. His Ninety-Five Theses helped ignite the Protestant Reformation, challenging entrenched authority and transforming the relationship between believers, Scripture and religious institutions.

The irony should not escape us. Some Protestant traditions that emerged from a rebellion against abuses of religious authority now face similar questions about money, power and accountability.

Where medieval Christians encountered indulgences, today's believers sometimes encounter promises of breakthroughs, deliverance, healing and prosperity tied to financial contributions. The language has changed; the temptation to commercialise people's relationship with God has not.

This is not to suggest that all pastors are charlatans or that churches should not receive financial support. Many religious organisations provide valuable education, healthcare, counselling and humanitarian assistance. The Kayanja ministry, for example, points to its humanitarian activities and says it maintains financial records subject to tax-authority scrutiny.

Such contributions deserve acknowledgement. However, good works do not place any institution beyond legitimate questioning.

Jesus himself drove merchants and money changers from the temple when commercial activity corrupted its sacred purpose. Christianity has never been comfortable with reducing God's blessings to merchandise.

The controversy also raises questions about how religious leaders respond to criticism. In Luke 6:28, Jesus instructed his followers to bless those who curse them and pray for those who mistreat them.

It is telling, therefore, that some pastors responded to Gashumba by cursing him and invoking death or misfortune. Even allowing for the emotions generated by his provocations, such responses seem difficult to reconcile with Christ's teachings on forgiveness and love. A pastor's moral authority is tested most clearly when challenged, not when addressing a receptive congregation.

In some ministries, the pastor's word becomes indistinguishable from God's word. Questioning the pastor is portrayed as rebellion against God, while loyalty to the leader becomes a measure of spiritual commitment.

This creates fertile ground for manipulation, encouraging believers to outsource their judgment, financial decisions and even medical choices to religious authorities. Christianity is fundamentally about a personal relationship with God, not unquestioning dependence on a spiritual intermediary. Pastors should guide and empower believers, not make them permanently dependent on a leader.

Perhaps the lasting value of Gashumba's intervention will have little to do with whether anybody collects his Shs500 million. It may instead lie in prompting ordinary Christians to ask:

What exactly do I believe, and why? Does my pastor's teaching agree with Scripture? Am I giving out of conviction or fear? Does my faith make me more compassionate, responsible and independent, or increasingly dependent on another human being?

These questions do not weaken Christianity. They can strengthen it.

Ugandan Christianity may be approaching its own moment of reflection. This need not produce another schism. It could produce a more discerning congregation, more accountable religious leadership and a renewed emphasis on Christ's teachings rather than the personalities of individual pastors.

Ultimately, the greatest danger to Christianity is not Frank Gashumba or anyone else who questions religious leaders. It is the possibility that believers have become so attached to their pastors that they can no longer distinguish criticism of a man from an attack on God.

"God does not need protection from legitimate questions. Nor should a pastor's reputation become the foundation upon which anyone builds their faith....

If this controversy reminds Christians to put their faith in God rather than in those who claim to speak for Him, Gashumba will have performed a valuable public service.

And he will not have needed to perform a single miracle.

SHS4000 TO THE DOLLAR: THE WARNING WE HEARD, THE LESSONS WE IGNORED

Uganda's exchange-rate debate has a long memory, even if economic policy sometimes appears to have a short one. Every time the shilling comes under pressure, the country revisits familiar arguments: the strength of the US dollar, speculative activity, government spending, central bank intervention and the cost of defending the currency.

Yet the exchange rate keeps moving. From around Shs2,000 to the dollar in the early 2010s, to Shs3,000 in 2015, and now beyond Shs4,000 in October 2026, the direction of travel tells a story about an economy whose appetite for foreign exchange has repeatedly outstripped its ability to earn it.

A review of the exchange-rate debate over the years, reveals a recurring lesson: monetary policy can manage the pace of depreciation, but a lasting solution depends on the productive capacity of the economy.

The warning signs were there

In 2011, the shilling came under intense pressure, provoking complaints from importers and calls for government intervention. The debate was already about more than the price of the dollar. It was about whether the authorities could defend a particular exchange rate when the economy was not generating sufficient foreign currency to sustain it.

In March 2015, when the dollar crossed Shs3,000, this column published “The Shilling Collapse Is Our Fault, Not the Dollar's”. The argument was not that international developments were irrelevant. The US Federal Reserve was moving towards tighter monetary policy, the dollar was strengthening globally, and commodity prices were under pressure.

But Uganda also had domestic weaknesses. Its export earnings were vulnerable to commodity-price fluctuations, while demand for imported fuel, machinery, manufactured goods and other products continued to consume foreign exchange.

The warning was that attempting to hold the dollar at Shs2,000 without the economic fundamentals to support that rate would be futile. The exchange rate could be managed, but not indefinitely divorced from the country's capacity to earn dollars.

Adam Mugume's warning: Act before inflation takes hold

An especially revealing contribution to this debate came in October 2015, when Adam Mugume, then Bank of Uganda director of research, explained the central bank's thinking on depreciation and inflation.

In an interview published by Business Vision on October 12, under the headline “Uganda Bracing Itself for More Inflation”, Mugume explained that the central bank had tightened monetary policy in anticipation of inflationary pressure. The concerns included a deteriorating balance of payments, the prospect of tighter US monetary policy and weakening foreign-exchange inflows.

The interview highlighted pressures across foreign direct investment, workers' remittances, exports and tourism, alongside rising imports. Depreciation would increase the domestic cost of imported goods and eventually feed into inflation. Waiting until inflation had surged would make it more difficult and expensive to contain.

The follow-up discussion in this column's October 2015 archive illustrates the enduring policy dilemma. Higher interest rates can support the shilling and restrain inflation, but they can also make borrowing more expensive, slow investment and constrain economic growth.

Mugume's warning remains relevant. The Bank of Uganda can influence liquidity, expectations and the pace of depreciation, but it cannot determine the country's underlying supply of foreign exchange. That depends on exports, services, investment, remittances and other inflows, set against the economy's demand for dollars.

Depreciation is not a straight line

The subsequent history of the shilling demonstrates why individual exchange-rate milestones should not be mistaken for a permanent trend.

In 2022, the dollar approached Shs4,000 as the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates aggressively to combat inflation. Higher yields on dollar assets encouraged global investors to favour the US currency, putting pressure on emerging-market currencies, including the shilling.

The shilling subsequently recovered some ground. In 2024, stronger foreign-exchange inflows, including those associated with coffee exports, helped support the currency.

These recoveries matter. They demonstrate that exchange rates respond to changing supply and demand conditions and that depreciation is not necessarily a one-way journey.

But temporary appreciation does not automatically mean that the structural problem has been resolved. A good coffee season, a surge in capital inflows or improved investor sentiment can strengthen the shilling without fundamentally changing Uganda's dependence on imported goods and external financing.

From coffee to gold: Uganda's export transformation

The story of the shilling is not one of economic stagnation. Uganda has made meaningful progress in expanding its export earnings and diversifying the range of goods and services it sells abroad.

The historical record in this column's Uganda exports archive documents the expansion of the export basket beyond traditional agricultural commodities. Fish, flowers, cement, manufactured products, electricity and regional trade have created additional sources of foreign exchange.

The transformation has continued. In “When Coffee Ruled the Uganda Shilling”, published in April 2026, this column examined the emergence of gold as Uganda's leading export earner. Coffee receipts were estimated at about $2.5 billion in 2025, while gold earnings reached approximately $6.4 billion.

Official data also illustrate the scale of the expansion. In the first eleven months of financial year 2025/26, merchandise export receipts reached $14.47 billion, up 34.4 per cent from $10.76 billion in the corresponding period a year earlier. The growth was driven principally by coffee and gold. See the Ministry of Finance's March 2026 economic performance report.

This is significant progress. In the past, the timing of the coffee harvest could have a pronounced effect on the supply of dollars in the domestic market. Gold, alongside other agricultural and non-agricultural exports, has broadened the sources of foreign exchange and altered the seasonal pattern of inflows.

It would therefore be misleading to explain the shilling's depreciation simply by claiming that Uganda is not exporting enough or that nothing has changed in the productive economy.

Diversification, however, does not eliminate vulnerability. Gold and coffee prices fluctuate, and export receipts do not necessarily translate into an equivalent increase in dollars available in the domestic market at the moment importers need them. The timing of repatriation, the foreign-exchange requirements of businesses and the movement of capital all influence the exchange rate.

There is also a new concentration risk. Gold's growing importance means that Uganda is more exposed to developments in that market. The destination of exports matters, too: a concentration of gold shipments in particular markets can leave receipts vulnerable to changes in trading arrangements and demand.

The broader discussion in this column's Uganda gold archive is relevant to the currency debate. Gold can provide a powerful source of foreign exchange, but the durability of that benefit depends on the value retained locally, the industry's structure and how the proceeds are used.

Uganda has made progress in earning more dollars. The question is whether those earnings are keeping pace with the economy's total demand for foreign exchange.

The trade deficit: Where the dollars go

The merchandise trade balance provides part of the answer. It measures the difference between the value of goods Uganda exports and the value of goods it imports. When imports exceed exports, the country must finance the gap through other foreign-exchange inflows, such as services earnings, remittances, investment, borrowing or the use of reserves.

Uganda's problem is that import demand can grow just as rapidly as export earnings, sometimes faster. In June 2026, merchandise imports rose by 33.2 per cent year-on-year to $1.88 billion, while exports increased by 11 per cent to $1.28 billion. The monthly merchandise trade deficit consequently widened to approximately $598 million. The figures appear in the Ministry of Finance's July 2026 economic performance report.

The import bill reflects more than consumer demand. Uganda imports petroleum products, machinery, vehicles, chemicals, industrial inputs and equipment needed to expand productive capacity. Some of these imports are essential to future growth and export production. Treating every import as a problem would therefore be a mistake.

The challenge is to ensure that the productive capacity created by these imports eventually generates sufficient additional income, including foreign exchange, to justify the expenditure. Machinery that enables a manufacturer to export more can strengthen the economy's external position over time. An import that produces no corresponding increase in future earning capacity can leave the country more dependent on fresh foreign-exchange inflows.

The merchandise trade balance is not, however, the same as the current-account balance. The latter also includes trade in services, primary income and transfers. Uganda may earn more from exports while paying more for freight, insurance, technical services and income accruing to foreign investors. These outflows help explain why rising merchandise export receipts do not necessarily translate into an equivalent improvement in the country's overall external position.

The IMF's 2026 Article IV assessment of Uganda highlighted the continuing current-account deficit despite strong coffee and gold exports. Investment-related imports, gold imports and a wider services-account deficit were among the pressures.

The distinction matters when explaining the shilling. The exchange rate responds not just to the value of goods crossing Uganda's borders but to the country's entire flow of foreign-currency receipts and payments, alongside capital movements and market expectations.

Uganda has made progress on exports, but the benefits are being offset, at least in part, by a substantial import bill and other external payments. The policy task is not simply to export more, but to improve the net foreign-exchange contribution of economic growth.

Why Shs4,000 now?

The move beyond Shs4,000 should not be interpreted as proof that Uganda's export strategy has failed. Rather, it demonstrates that export growth and currency stability are related but not interchangeable.

A country can earn more dollars than ever before and still experience depreciation if its demand for dollars rises faster, if its other external payments increase, or if investors shift their portfolios towards foreign currencies.

The immediate pressures include international oil prices, geopolitical uncertainty, demand for imports and the timing of foreign-exchange inflows. The longer-term issue is whether Uganda can convert its expanding export base into a sufficiently strong and dependable net supply of foreign exchange.

The shilling traded around Shs3,604 to the dollar in March 2026. By October, commercial bank quotations had crossed Shs4,000. The Daily Monitor reported the record low on October 5.

On October 14, the Bank of Uganda raised its Central Bank Rate by 2.25 percentage points, from 9.75 to 12 per cent, in response to mounting inflation and exchange-rate risks.

Higher interest rates can make shilling-denominated investments more attractive, restrain demand and help contain inflation expectations. If government bond yields rise in response to the new policy rate and market conditions, the additional return could attract demand for shillings and moderate depreciation.

However, this outcome is not guaranteed. Higher borrowing costs can discourage investment, increase the government's debt-servicing burden and constrain private-sector expansion. Nor can monetary tightening create export earnings overnight.

Who pays for a weaker shilling?

Depreciation redistributes purchasing power. Importers pay more for dollar-priced goods, and consumers face higher prices for fuel, medicines, machinery and other essentials. Businesses with dollar-denominated debts face higher repayment costs in shilling terms.

Exporters, tourism operators and recipients of remittances may receive more shillings for every dollar earned. Investors with foreign-currency assets can also benefit from the translation effect when those assets are valued in shillings.

But the benefits are not uniform. An exporter that depends on imported fertiliser, fuel, packaging or machinery may find that rising input costs erode the advantage of a weaker currency.

The deeper question is whether Uganda is becoming better at earning foreign exchange. Coffee and gold have become important sources of export receipts, while tourism and remittances remain significant. Oil production offers further possibilities.

Yet a country cannot sustainably finance an expanding import bill through occasional commodity booms, external borrowing or the sale of foreign reserves.

The real defence of the shilling

The debate has repeatedly returned to the same choices: intervene or let the market work; raise interest rates or protect affordable credit; defend purchasing power today or preserve the capacity to invest for tomorrow.

These are genuine policy trade-offs. The Bank of Uganda can manage liquidity, anchor inflation expectations and respond to disorderly movements in the currency market. It cannot manufacture an unlimited supply of dollars.

Government must complement monetary policy with fiscal discipline, predictable investment rules and productive public expenditure. Businesses must invest in productivity and exports rather than depend indefinitely on preferential access to foreign exchange. Farmers and manufacturers need better infrastructure, reliable energy and affordable finance to compete internationally.

Uganda must also capture more value from what it produces. Processed and branded coffee, agricultural manufacturing, tourism, mineral beneficiation and other tradable services offer opportunities to earn more from each dollar of foreign exchange generated.

Shs4,000 should therefore be treated as a price signal, not automatically as either a national catastrophe or an achievement. It tells us that, under prevailing conditions, demand for foreign exchange is exceeding supply at the previous price.

The lesson from the warnings of 2011, the debate in 2015 and the subsequent recoveries is that defending the shilling cannot be the responsibility of monetary policy alone.

Uganda has expanded and diversified its exports. That progress should be recognised. But the next challenge is to ensure that export growth, domestic production and the wider balance of payments improve fast enough to meet the country's rising demand for foreign exchange.

The strongest defence of the shilling is an economy that earns more dollars, creates more value from its exports and reduces its dependence on imports that it could competitively produce at home.

The dollar may rise or fall. The more important question is whether Uganda will finally address the economic fundamentals that turn every new exchange-rate milestone into another national debate.

THE SHILLING HAS CROSSED 4K, WHAT NOW?

There are some numbers in an economy that are more than numbers. In Uganda Shs4,000 to the dollar is one of them.

For years, Ugandans watched the exchange rate move around Shs3,500, then Shs3,700, occasionally threatening Shs4,000. Now the psychological barrier has been breached. Last week, the shilling crossed Shs4,000, from about Shs3,604 in March.

So what is happening—and where do we go from here?

There is a useful historical lesson here.

In March 2015, when the dollar first broke through Shs3,000, I wrote in this column that “the shilling collapse is our fault, not the dollar’s.”

The dollar’s global strength mattered. The US Federal Reserve was tightening after years of extraordinary monetary stimulus. But global currency movements were only part of Uganda’s problem.

Coffee exports had fallen by almost a fifth because of drought. Donor inflows had not fully recovered. Meanwhile, demand for imported goods and fuel was growing.

In other words, our supply of dollars was weakening just as our appetite for dollars was increasing.

That sounds remarkably familiar today.

"The immediate explanation for today’s depreciation is straightforward. Manufacturers, energy companies and other importers are buying more dollars. Some businesses are bringing forward foreign-currency purchases ahead of the end-of-year import season. Higher global oil prices are adding pressure...

Oil prices have risen sharply amid the conflict involving Iran and the wider Middle East, raising fears of disruption to supplies and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

For Uganda, which imports virtually all its petroleum products, this matters twice. We need more dollars to buy the same fuel, while higher fuel costs feed into transport and production costs throughout the economy.

There is also evidence of offshore investors trimming Ugandan debt holdings or buying dollars to hedge those positions.

But underneath all this is the same basic equation: the exchange rate is a price. It reflects the supply of dollars coming into Uganda against demand for dollars going out.

And our demand has grown considerably.

We import fuel, machinery, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, electronics and industrial inputs. We also have foreign debt obligations and a private sector increasingly integrated into global supply chains.

"The question is therefore not simply whether Uganda is earning more dollars. It is whether we are earning them fast enough...

In the late 1990s, you could predict the shilling by looking at the coffee calendar. September was coffee season. Exporters brought dollars into the country, converted them into shillings to pay farmers and meet local costs, and the shilling strengthened.

Coffee was so important that the currency almost danced to its harvest cycle.

But Uganda is no longer that economy.

In the late 1990s, coffee accounted for roughly 58 percent of exports. Today it remains a major source of foreign exchange, but gold has become an even larger export earner. Tourism, remittances, regional trade and other exports have diversified our dollar earnings.

The old coffee clock has not disappeared because coffee is unimportant. It has disappeared because the economy has become much bigger and more complicated.

Coffee earnings in July were 18.2 percent below the previous year, while August shipments fell 13.6 percent in volume and 10.3 percent in value. At the same time, dollar demand from energy, manufacturing and other importers remains strong.

The seasonal pattern is still there. It is simply being overwhelmed.

The lesson from 2015 remains valid.

The Bank of Uganda can smooth excessive volatility, manage liquidity and use reserves when necessary. But it cannot permanently manufacture dollars.

Trying to defend an artificially strong shilling simply requires the central bank to continually sell dollars. Eventually, reserves run down and the market forces the adjustment anyway—potentially more violently.

The answer cannot be to defend a particular number forever.

Did the Sovereignty Bill contribute?

It would be wrong to say the Protection of Sovereignty Bill caused the shilling to cross Shs4,000. There is no evidence for such a simple causal relationship.

But legislation affecting foreign capital does have economic consequences.

When the original bill was before Parliament, Bank of Uganda Governor Michael Atingi-Ego warned that restrictions could discourage foreign investment, portfolio capital and remittances. The legislation eventually passed was substantially amended, with legitimate financial flows protected.

So the final law should not be blamed for today’s depreciation.

"But investors watch more than the final wording. They watch how laws are conceived, debated and implemented. For someone deciding whether to invest $10 million in Uganda for ten years, predictability matters.

That is the confidence channel through which politics eventually becomes economics...

There are winners too

Uganda is predominantly a net importer, so a weaker shilling means higher prices for fuel, machinery, pharmaceuticals, electronics and consumer goods.

But the exporter sees the same exchange rate differently. A coffee farmer, gold exporter, tourism operator or company earning dollars gets more shillings for every dollar.

Consider the Ugandan waiting for a diaspora relative to send $100 for Christmas. At Shs3,600 it bought Shs360,000. At Shs4,000, it buys Shs400,000.

There are also less obvious beneficiaries.

NSSF’s record 22.53 percent interest rate for 2025/26 was driven primarily by strong investment performance, particularly regional equities. But currency movements were part of the story. The Fund invests in assets denominated in regional currencies, and a weaker shilling can increase the value of those assets when translated back into shillings.

Some of the millions celebrating the record NSSF return are therefore, indirectly, beneficiaries of the same currency movement making imported goods more expensive.

The real danger is persistent depreciation that feeds inflation, erodes purchasing power and changes expectations.

The lesson for us remains that there are no shortcuts.

"Uganda cannot permanently protect itself from currency movements by leaning on the central bank. The answer is to produce more, export more and add more value...

A decade later, our export base is more diversified. Coffee is a much bigger earner in absolute terms, gold has emerged as a major source of foreign exchange, tourism and remittances remain important, and oil is approaching commercial production.

But we have also become a much bigger consumer and importer.

That is why Shs4,000 should be treated as a price signal, not a crisis. It is telling us that Uganda’s demand for the rest of the world is, for now, growing faster than its capacity to earn from the rest of the world.

The strongest defence of the shilling is therefore not central-bank intervention, a law or a presidential directive.

It is an economy that earns more dollars than it needs to spend.

AFRICA HAS TOO MANY RICH MEN AND TOO FEW CAPITALISTS

On Wednesday, Aliko Dangote stood in Lamu, Kenya, alongside African leaders and broke ground on a $16 billion oil refinery. The proposed plant will process 700,000 barrels of crude a day, include a 1,000MW power plant and, if completed as planned, rank among the largest refineries in the world.

Think about that.

Sixteen billion dollars. One African businessman. One African project.

That is why I have long argued that Dangote is a godsend for this continent.

Not because billionaires are saints—the Lamu project already faces legitimate land and environmental questions. But because he represents something Africa has in desperately short supply: indigenous capital willing to make bets at continental scale.

Countries are only as viable as their private sectors.

Governments can publish Vision 2040s and industrial policies. Eventually somebody has to write a cheque, build the factory, hire engineers, organise supply chains and wait years for a return.

Businesses, not governments, create wealth, jobs and goods and services. The role of government is to create an economic and legal environment in which more of those businesses can emerge and grow. We have more examples than I have space in this column to list the failed government businesses even in this NRM administration.

For years this column has argued that Africa is not poor. It is a deep-value play whose people, minerals, land and markets are consistently undervalued by bad politics, weak business skills and foreign risk models.

"Foreign capital sees political risk, currency risk, infrastructure gaps and regulatory uncertainty.

The spreadsheet says: run.

Dangote sees the same risks, but he has skin in the game...

That distinction matters. In 2024, writing about Uganda’s infrastructure financing, I argued that local investors often have a more nuanced understanding of African risk. What looks impossible from a London boardroom may be manageable if you understand the politics, people and terrain.

Dangote is that thesis on steroids.

There is another part of the story we underestimate. His commercial software is multigenerational. His great-grandfather, Alhassan Dantata, was among West Africa’s wealthiest traders. Dangote did not start at zero.

But the inheritance was more than money.

It was software.

How to judge risk. Negotiate. Preserve capital. Talk to bankers. Work through government. Reinvest. Survive reversals. Think in decades.

Wealth may be built in one generation and squandered by the third, but Dangote had flipped the script. Each generation appears to have built on what came before.

"That accumulated commercial intelligence now sits on top of a balance sheet large enough to underwrite ventures that would terrify most African governments—or put enough equity on the table for international money men to take notice.

He also straddles two worlds. He speaks the language of international capital—project finance, technical partners, equity, listings and return on capital, while navigating African governments, bureaucracies and the patronage systems surrounding large projects.

That brings us to an uncomfortable point.

Government support for big business is not automatically corruption.

I argued in 2020 that concessions can stimulate development if they back credible businesses, measurable outcomes and strategic industries. The problem is that support is too often handed to connected individuals with neither the competence nor intention to build anything.

The answer is not to stop backing winners.

It is to stop backing cronies.

Asia understood this better. Its governments helped create industrial champions, but eventually those champions had to export, compete and conquer markets. Africa too often protects rent-seekers instead of builders.

Dangote’s greatest achievement may therefore not be cement, fertiliser or even oil.

It may be confidence.

His Lagos refinery shattered a psychological ceiling. Projects of that scale were supposed to be built by multinationals, Gulf sovereigns or Chinese state companies. An African industrialist was supposed to trade, import, distribute and perhaps put up a respectable factory.

Dangote decided otherwise.

Now he is trying to reproduce the model in East Africa.

Success markets itself. Once investors see Africans successfully executing projects at this scale, they begin imagining steel mills, fertiliser plants, rail corridors and other mega-projects. Capital compounds, but confidence compounds too.

Africa therefore needs more Dangotes.

Not more rich men.

There is a difference.

A rich man wants to show that he has money. A capitalist wants to deploy money so it comes back with friends.

"A rich man measures success in VXs, mansions and little brown girls in tow. A capitalist measures it in productive assets, cashflows, factories and return on capital...

One consumes wealth.

The other reproduces it.

The tragedy of Africa is not that we have too many billionaires. It is that we have too few people whose ambitions have graduated from consumption to production and from national markets to continental ones.

Our governments should align development ambitions with indigenous capital while creating the conditions for larger African balance sheets: predictable policy, property rights, capital markets, patient finance and integrated regional markets.

Dangote will make enormous amounts of money if Lamu works.

Good.

If his billions come alongside jobs, skills, taxes, suppliers, infrastructure and cheaper energy, that is not a contradiction.

That is the bargain.

Capital makes money. Citizens live better.

"Our real failure would be to meet here again in 30 years and discover that Africa still has only one Dangote...

WHEN PAPER DIAMONDS OUTSHINE THE NSSF MAGIC

For years, the lazy story around Kampala was that the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) was "dead money." It was seen as a sleepy corporate club where capital went to rust while smart investors stuck to risk-free, double-digit government bonds.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank.

Institutional brokerage Crested Capital just released its Q3 2026 Total Shareholder Analysis, and it cuts clean through the stories we have been telling ourselves. Corporate Uganda is quietly experiencing an unprecedented operational awakening.

The baseline for investment success here has never been higher. Just the other night, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) declared a jaw-dropping 22.53% interest rate for the year ended June 2026, crediting a massive Shs5.44 trillion to workers' accounts. It was the highest return in NSSF history.

Yet against that incredible benchmark, a small clutch of local equities—dubbed the "Black Diamonds"—shone exponentially brighter. Crested Capital defines a Black Diamond as a local listed company returning north of 25% over a specified period, handily thrashing treasury bills, standard unit trusts, and the NSSF.

But this glittering performance comes with a serious warning for individual wealth creators: dispersion on the USE is brutal. Select right, and your capital compounds meaningfully. Select wrong, and you can sit on capital erosion for years.

The Performance Sheet

To see how the elite stack up against each other and the wider market, look at the data from the first nine months of 2026:

Counter / Entity	Price (2-Jan-26)	Price (30-Sep-26)	Capital Gain	Total Shareholder Return (TSR)
NIC Holdings	UGX 5.00	UGX 19.00	280.00%	280.00%
Airtel Uganda	UGX 85.00	UGX 189.00	122.35%	128.12%
Bank of Baroda	UGX 47.00	UGX 90.50	92.55%	105.32%
Stanbic Uganda (SBU)	UGX 60.32	UGX 110.02	82.39%	89.52%
Uganda Clays Limited (UCL)	UGX 5.00	UGX 8.40	68.00%	68.00%
MTN Uganda (MTNU)	UGX 315.00	UGX 446.00	41.59%	47.06%
Quality Chemical Industries (QCIL)	UGX 116.00	UGX 161.88	39.55%	45.07%
NSSF FY 2025/2026 (Benchmark)	—	—	—	22.53%

The New Economic Plumbing

These numbers are not abstract paper tricks. They reflect a deep structural shift we have discussed before: telecoms and financial ecosystems have officially become the indispensable plumbing of modern economic life.

Consider the telecom battleground. MTN Uganda recently became the first company in our history to cross the historic $1 billion annual revenue mark (Shs3.6 trillion). Its fintech platform, MTN MoMo, processed Shs195.5 trillion in transaction value.

MTN's transactional volume nearly matches Uganda’s entire Shs200 trillion GDP, functioning as the financial bloodstream of the nation. While MTN leads in absolute scale, Airtel Uganda has displayed sharper data momentum and operating efficiency, fueling its stock re-rating from Shs85.00 to Shs189.00.

In the banking sector, the story is equally deep. Stanbic Bank has flexed its profit muscle, boosting interim dividends by 57.1% to Shs4.30 per share—returning capital to shareholders twice as fast as its underlying profit growth.

However, market dispersion remains unforgiving. While top counters thrive, others like New Vision (-3.33% TSR), BAT (-13.34% TSR), and Umeme (-73.97% TSR) face severe slumps or terminal regulatory risks, proving that selectivity is vital.

Ultimately, paper gains mean nothing until realized. As the report's parting warning notes, the TSR and capital gains are simply paper gains. You need to exit your position to earn the return, rather than watching the market move while eating your seed.

OPEN THE BOOKS, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A few weekends ago, I spent an entire day with a group of young Ugandans examining our financial health.

And I mean examining it properly.

Everyone was required to open their books — incomes, expenses, assets and liabilities — for all and sundry to see. We shared what we had done right, where we had gone wrong, what we had learned and opened ourselves up to both praise and criticism.

It was revelatory.

Money is one of those things we talk about endlessly without ever really talking about it. But numbers have a way of cutting through the stories we tell ourselves.

Here is what I took away.

1. Track your financials — what you focus on expands

Tracking your finances is essential, even critical, to financial health.

You need to know what is coming in, what is going out, what you own and what you owe.

Once you track the numbers consistently, patterns emerge. You see which expenses can be reduced, which habits are quietly draining you and which decisions are actually moving you forward.

Without records, we operate on impressions. We tell ourselves we are saving enough, spending reasonably or investing aggressively. The numbers may tell a very different story.

What you focus on expands.

The simple act of watching your income, expenses, assets and liabilities changes behaviour. You begin looking for ways to increase income, cut waste and redirect money towards assets.

Before you can improve your financial position, you need to know where you stand.

 

2. Start where you are, with what you have

Do not be discouraged by your current financial position.

Every mighty tree started as a seedling.

The person with Sh500m in assets once had Sh50m. Before that there may have been Sh5m. Somewhere there was a first shilling that was saved rather than spent.

Your current situation is a starting point, not a permanent condition.

Save something. Buy your first share. Start the small business. Pay off the expensive loan. Acquire the first productive asset.

The amounts may look insignificant at the beginning, but the habit is not. Capital compounds. Knowledge compounds. Experience compounds.

Do not despise small beginnings.

3. We have to unlearn a lot about money

One thing became very clear: getting onto the road to financial health requires more than earning more.

We have to unwind a lot of conditioning.

We have laboured under myths about money: debt is always bad; land is the only real investment; shares are gambling; a bigger salary automatically creates wealth; investing is only for people who already have money; looking successful means being successful.

Much of this thinking works against wealth creation.

Our financial behaviour is not just mathematics. It is psychology, culture, family expectations, fear, ego and status.

Unless we interrogate these assumptions, higher income may simply allow us to make the same mistakes on a bigger scale.

Before financial freedom appears on the balance sheet, it often has to begin in the mind.

4. Everyone’s journey is personal

Do not compare your Chapter One with somebody else’s Chapter Five.

They may have started earlier, earn more, inherited something, taken different risks or simply be further along.

Comparison becomes particularly dangerous when it pushes us into consumption.

Someone buys a new car, builds a house or takes an expensive holiday and suddenly we feel pressure to do the same.

But they may be eating their harvest while you are still planting.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is to eat your seed because somebody else is eating their harvest.

There is a season for accumulation and a season for enjoyment. If you are still building capital, protect it fiercely.

Your race is with the person you were yesterday.

5. Shift expenses towards investment — and stay on the compounding curve

The most powerful lesson was seeing compounding working in real life.

Not in Warren Buffett’s portfolio. Not in New York or London.

Here. In Uganda.

This same economy we are always mourning about.

We saw practical examples of young people steadily shifting expenditure away from consumption and towards investment, then giving time a chance to do the heavy lifting.

That is the trick.

Earn. Create a surplus. Turn the surplus into productive assets. Reinvest the returns. Repeat.

Eventually the money starts doing more of the work.

But compounding has one major enemy: interruption.

We interrupt it when every salary increase becomes a lifestyle upgrade, when dividends are consumed, when business profits finance status or when every windfall becomes a new phone, car or holiday.

The compounding effect should sit at the centre of every wealth-creation journey, whether you are a nine-to-five worker, farmer, hustler or downtown businessman.

What struck me most was that many of these kids are not yet 30.

I was in awe.

They are making sacrifices at exactly the age when everything around them screams YOLO and FOMO.

Yet they are quietly building.

Life will interrupt them — job losses, bad investments, family emergencies, illness, business setbacks.

But if they remain committed to the mission, these will be speed bumps, not roadblocks.

I left enormously hopeful about the future.

And, I confess, slightly envious.

Because many of them have understood something I wish I had understood much earlier.

They are already on the journey.

And when it comes to compounding, time may be the most valuable asset of all.