UGANDA'S VISION 2040 IS HERE

The plan is that by 2040 Uganda will be an upper middle income nation with a per capita income of $9500, a ninteenfold jump from the current $500.

This is contained in the final draft of the National Vision 2040, that the National Planning Authority (NPA) has been working on since 2010.

Assuming that population growth continues at its current rate of just over 3% economic growth will have to average about 15% a year for the next 27 years to meet this ambitious target.

NPA envisages that broken down, this would mean dramatic improvements in poverty levels, a reorientation of the economy towards industry and services and away from agriculture, greater proportion of manufactured exports and a near threefold jump in national savings as a proportion of GDP.

NPA chairman Professor Kisamba Mugerwa thinks it’s doable.

Mugerwa told New Vision editors in a recent visit that opportunities in oil &gas, tourism, mineral development, industrialization and agriculture can be leveraged to deliver the result.

What needs to be done is to strengthen the physical infrastructure, human resource, science and technology and consolidate the current peace and security.

In support of all this there also has to be movement in social development and governance issues.

Of course Uganda Vision 2040 is a road map, the devil is truly in the detail, in the execution of the plan.

“There has to be a society wide mindset change not only at the central government but at every level of leadership,” Mugerwa said.

He explained that the national budget, which is government’s primary tool of execution of development, will derive its strategic direction from the Uganda Vision 2040.

Mugerwa said that there have been only three five-year development plans, with the last being the 1971 plan that was jettisoned by the Amin coup of that year. Since then the government has been undergoing restructuring, rehabilitation and poverty alleviation driven by the donor agenda.

To get anything done your human resource, operational and strategic processes have to be in place.

They say if you don’t know where you are going most likely you will get there.

Vision 2040 provides much needed direction to the country for the next few years and also proposes a framework for bridging our operational and human resource gaps.

We whine about the conditions we live in, complain about the slow pace of progress and grumble that we deserve better, but as some South African investor who plans to commit a few tens of million dollars to this economy said, we are so in the thick of things we cannot see the forest from the trees.

He had been away from Uganda for a decade and was amazed at the pace of development.

And all has happened and continues to happen without an articulated vision that a critical mass of Ugandans have bought into.

Vision 2040 may be linchpin the economy has been waiting for to push the agenda forward.

Progress would mean a greater formalization of the economies and we who are used to the informality of our lives – despite our protests, maybe the very ones who work against the whole vision.

The enterprise called corruption for instance will have to be broken down to allow for forward movement. But one can bet that its proponents will not seat around to be picked off like ducks in a row, they will fight and subvert the process at every turn. The success or failure of this anti-corruption fight will depend on how captive our systems and government are to the champions of corruption.

There is something that happens when a plan is put in place. Attention is generated, resources are focused and yes, miracles happen.

Vision 2040 should be given a chance, because I don’t know about you but for some us this is the only country we have and we daren’t give up on it.

WE NEED TO RECORD UGANDA'S HISTORY

 

The last week of January and the first week of February mark very important days in the NRM and Uganda’s history.

On 26^th January we commemorate the day in 1986 when the NRA marched on Kampala and overthrew the Tito Okello regime. On 6^th February we mark the day in 1981 when the first shot was fired in the bush war that led to the NRA’s eventual victory five years later.

The former is a public holiday while the latter is not, it would be hard to argue against commemorating either whatever your feelings are towards the regime of the day.

At both occasions President Yoweri Museveni as the main celebrant narrated key achievements in the last 27 years in the case of the NRM or in the case of Tarehe Sita outlined the progress the army has made, going back to the training camps in Mozambique, long before the attack on Kabamba 32 years ago.

The pageantry that was displayed at the Arua Tarehe Sita celebrations are a far cry from the motley crew that laid siege on Kabamaba or the rag tag army that captured Kampala.

It does not take much of an imagination to work out that the FRONASA/NRA/UPDF story is one worth telling.

"A young boy consumed with  revolutionary fervor determines that Uganda deserves better. He sets upon winning his friends to his vision of the future. On holiday from the university of Dar es Salaam he and his friends sneak over the border into Mozambican rebel camps to get a taste of how a rebel war is conceived and executed. He returns to Uganda but has to flee soon after the government for which he works is overthrown. He along with others foment rebellion against the Idi Amin regime suffering deadly set backs even before the struggle has gained any traction. He returns to Kampala. Eight years after falls out with the government and retreats to the bush as the head of a new rebellion...

The rest as they say is history.

And that is where the problem lies. We seem content to leave these events in the realm of oral history. The problem with oral history is that it falls into the same trap as the popular party game Chinese Whispers. In the game a line of guests is formed and a simple message is whispered into the ear of the person at the head of the line with the simple instruction to whisper the message to the next in line. As always happens by the time the message gets at the other end of the room it is so distorted as not to be recognized from the original whisper.

The UPDF is unique in its creation and its said mission.

Unlike many armies on the continent that are remnants of a colonial legacy and are detached from the citizens they are sworn to protect, the UPDF has grown out of our circumstances, does not see itself as a mercenary attack dog and is very much embedded in our daily circumstance.

And we are not talking about commissioning some connected quark who wants to make a buck, but real military historians who can write a detailed account for the military archives and then release an account of only the bare essentials for public consumption.

The reason why the western economies have been at the forefront of innovation in every sphere of life is because they have had the written word for centuries. This means that every generation of innovators does not have to reinvent the wheel but take off from where the last generation left off.

As Isaac Newton confessed, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.

This applies for Ugandan history as well.

For example in school Ugandan history ends at independence, what we know about postcolonial history are the varied accounts according to one group’s or the others political bias.

Uganda’s history is such that even the most objective of accounts cannot take away from the colour of the last 50 years and will make for interesting reading by even the most jaundiced eye.

History is intellectual property that can be used by future generations for their benefit.

The point is, futile as it maybe, we need to fight the curse that the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. A first step towards that is to record it, so that future generations even if they make the mistakes of their forefathers will not feign ignorance...

IS THIS THE DEMISE OF THE UGANDA CAPITAL'S PRIVATE BUS COMPANY

Last week Pioneer Easy Bus, the company that has over the last year been providing bus services in Kampala, had 98 of its buses impounded by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).

URA moved in order to recover sh8b in taxes it says are due to it.

Pioneer’s orange buses hit the street last year just in time to detooth a strike by the taxi operator association UTODA. At the time UTODA was protesting moves by the new incorporated city authority to collect dues owed it by the taxi operator.

The bus company came with the promise of decongesting our roads, lower fares and sparing road users the obnoxious behavior of our taxis.

They were such a relief that the public was willing to overlook the fact the new buses had not complied with all formalities.

The honeymoon is over.

No one doubts that Kampala’s transport system is in need of an urgent overhaul and that bus transport is part of the solution.

There must be money to be made and no one was surprised when the Pioneer slipped into the sector like a duck to water and started making money hand over fist.

But problems begun to creep in, understandably so as Pioneer’s business plan did not call for such an early entrance into the sector.

At the end of last year the bus company’s management in explaining their decision to hike prices said KCCA had not lived up to its obligations of among other things providing bus lanes. Bus lanes the company argued would make it possible for their buses to make more round trips and therefore justify the low prices.

There were reports of drivers striking over pay, changes in top management and talk of negotiations with authorities to provide concessions that would make the company’s business model more viable all of which may have been brushed off as teething pains.

That being said they say that deals are not bad it is the people handling the deals.

Think about it you were going to have 100 buses, the majority of which will be plying the various routes in and out of the city almost simultaneously, there would be logistical challenges – fuelling, maintenance and even meals, human resource issues – this is a startup that was going to hit the ground with easily a 100 drivers and conductors, not to mention backroom and other support staff. Then of course there were financing issues to consider – how do you not only get the startup capital but also the operating capital to tide you over the steep early learning curve.

The record of startups the world over is very dismal with nine in ten new companies not seeing their fifth birthday. And just because you start big does not mean the risk goes away if anything these are magnified.

Business is about managing risk. Risk is a function of knowledge. The more knowledge you have the better you can mitigate against risk.

You pay no particular attention to driving to work. Through years of experience, the accumulated knowledge will allow you to cater for any risks along the way to work. So the risk of you not getting to work is minimized. But if you give your car keys to your ten year old son to drive the same car, at the same time on the same route  to work, the risk is  suddenly life threatening. 

Similarly in the wide scope of things a bus company with a fleet to 100 buses is nothing to write home about. Across the border in Kenya, KBS which has been servicing Nairobi has been doing so for decades with a fleet which dwarfs Pioneer’s.

Management knowhow and experience more than money is the key mitigant of risk.

Thankfully the travelling public will not penalize Pioneer for this hiccup in operations if they get back on the road.

One hopes that Pioneer can bounce back, -- if only so we do not return to the chaos of a taxi dominated industry, but one hopes too that whether they do or they don’t, that this experience will provide key lessons for anybody going into the business.

A GOOD AFRICAN STORY: HOW A SMALL COMPANY BUILT A GLOBAL COFFEE BRAND

Africa is the most naturally endowed continent on the planet, but it is also the home of the most down trodden of the earth.

Why the contradiction?

In a nut shell, we sell our natural resources, be they cash crops, minerals or even labour for a pittance. These are then processed abroad and onsold at multiples of their original cost.

The logic is simple, to raise the continent out of poverty we need to capture more of this value for ourselves. But just because what is needed is simple to grasp does not mean it is easy to execute.

This thesis is at the center of businessman Andrew Rugasira’s book “A Good African Story: How a small company built a global coffee brand” that has only just hit the bookshops.

The book is an autobiographical account of the company, Good African Coffee, which has pooled farmers in the Kasese region, improved their coffee husbandry practices, processed the coffee for the pallets of western consumers and in the process not only won Uganda pride of place in South Africa, UK and the US but also raised incomes in the coffee growing hills of Kasese.

What you see is the finished product or at least a very far cry from the early days of trudging up hills in Bugisu and Kasese to win over skeptical farmers. Farmers who had seen many city types come talk a good game and once they got what they want either not live up to the bargain or leave them high and dry altogether.

The UK educated Rugasira is an unlikely champion of the rural farmer, born into privilege in Uganda’s post-independence middle class, he probably never spent a day with hoe and panga, but his studies in political economy and his father’s entrepreneurial experience, raised questions that demanded answers.

In a nutshell, why is Africa poor?

He took over his father’s chalk factory, made forays into the world of event management and media buying, but the question continued to nudge at his soul.

It is a tale of how, he gets his eureka moment, bets everything including his reputation, tries to sell coffee to the queen, hobnobs with the masters of the universe, battles his own self-doubt and fights to win the most cynical over to his cause.

It is an inspiring account  of what it means to dream big and pay the price.

And the price has been steep, from outright derision at his efforts, confidence sapping rejection, nauseating patronizing by the potential buyers of his coffee and the many days and nights when all the company had to keep it going was a hope and a prayer.

Thankfully there were also instances of divine providence, touching support and tear jerking saved-from-the-cliff moments when the vision almost died before it got started.

But all these things are embedded in a context.

Rugasira explores the Uganda’s colonial legacy to explain why things are the way they, describes the bureaucratic impediments to development, the sabotage of well-meaning actors and even has some thoughts on what has to be done to redress the situation so the continent can live up to its full potential.

Rugasira says the story is not nearly over, the ten-year old company still has many more mountains to surmount before it can be a true celebration of African resilience. The story needed to be told up to this point he says, if only to inspire others to make the journey.

The major shortcoming of the book is that it is a book about a company with little detail about what drives the man and sets him apart.

A potential academic yawner has been turned into an engaging read, the heavy theory peppered with jaw dropping, often times hilarious but always thought provoking, accounts of Rugasira’s struggle to get onto the supermarket shelves of the western world.

Written as a story it is a must read for anyone who wants to understand why Africa is the way it is, what it is going to take to pull us out of the morass, but it is also a simple book to inspire the soul and strengthen the spirit.

*The book is available in all major bookshops around Kampala