Moses is a budding entrepreneur with a small restaurant and
washing bay near Munyonyo. From his road
side operation Moses services all types from the mason on a very tight budget
to the hung over sufferer on weekend mornings. He plans to be a household name
in five years’ time with branches of his restaurant dotted all over the city’s suburbs.
It is with this in mind that Moses has presented himself to
KCCA to benefit from the government’s Youth Fund, of which KCCA is one of the
agents.
With the sh5m he is applying for he plans to buy new
furniture for his restaurant and be able to buy his supplies in bulk. He also
wants to buy new equipment for his washing bay.
During last year’s election President Yoweri Museveni made
the campaign pledge to set up a Youth Fund, a revolving fund that would lend
money to young entrepreneurs to shore up their businesses.
Since then the government has committed sh44b to the
endeavor, channeling it through the formal banking system.
The finer details of the loans may differ but basically the
loans of between sh100,000 to sh5m, will be on lent to small businessmen over
three years at a about 14%. The money is intended for projects that will
increase employment and which have promising futures.
As a nation we are seating on a time tomb. At current rates
our population is doubling every 20 years, while our economy is not growing
fast enough to meet the rising demands of this growing population. But even
more worrying is that almost half of our population is under the age of 15 and
in coming years will need a source of employment.
It is fallacious to think – and it has not happened anywhere
in the world, that by building huge industrial concerns we will be able to
absorb this youthful army. The world over it’s the small enterprises that
employ the most workers.
For this reason it makes sense to offer some support to
small businesses. But in addition it is these small businesses that will
eventually grow into big businesses. As a long term strategy to grow big
businesses we need to support the small businessman.
Government has identified a lack of capital as a major
constraint of the small businessman and this is there effort to redress this.
People who have studied the subject in Uganda may argue too, that
entrepreneurship – the ability to convert opportunities into profitable,
sustainable enterprises is what is most missing in our society.
Past studies have shown that Uganda is atop the world
entrepreneurial ladder. However a lack of know how is preventing us from rising
from the setting up businesses for subsistence to building national, regional
and international concerns.
The know how to form
and sustain partnerships, to create and hold a vision and to create a systems
based operation that can not only drive itself but is scalable and
transferrable.
This knowledge cannot gleaned from the text books but learned
from experience. May government may want to invest too in a mentorship program,
where some of these small businessmen have more experienced businessman helping
then through the hard knocks of the business world.
In Uganda we are at a bit of a disadvantage. When you ask a
child in the US what he wants to be when he grows up he may answer Mark
Zukerberg, the founder of Facebook but Ugandan a kid will more likely than not
want to be a minister or a big public official. Which would be laughable if it
were not sad, because society’s wealth is created by the businessmen and not
the politician or the technocrat.
If there is one lesson we learn from the cold war is that a
country is only as viable as the strength of its private sector.
Years of turmoil means that most Ugandans are always on the
lookout to make an extra shilling on the side, starting up small businesses
alongside their formal employment. We take it for granted but this is not
normal procedure in neighbouring countries.
This is good thing because success in business is a numbers
game. Since the world over only a small fraction of businesses survive beyond
their first let alone fifth birthdays, the more startups you have the better
the chance one of those successes will gone to expand and thrive.
So government is on the right track trying to bridge the capital deficiency of our budding entrepreneurs, but maybe we would
get more bang for our buck if we invested in improving the capacity of our
businessmen, because after all money follows good management all the time.
