THE ISSUES SURROUNDING TRYING TO BE A GOOD LEADER

In the last fortnight the issue of leadership has really come into the fore.

In South Africa Jacob Zuma stepped down from the presidency, more like he was forced out kicking and screaming by his erstwhile allies. During his term he has blighted the notion that an African leader handed an emerging economy to manage can shed his baser instincts and run a tight ship.

Closer to home, disturbing, but not surprising, noises have been raised about our handling of refugees. Only last year the world was in awe of us. How as a poor country we were managing to handle a historic influx of refugees, up to a million from South Sudan alone. It turns out of course that that number might have been grossly overstated for the purpose of skimming, more like shovelling, the excess funds to connected individuals in the Office of the Prime Minister (them again?) and related UN and donor agencies. An investigation is ongoing but everyone is seating tight.

In Ethiopia prime minster Hailemariam Desalegn resigned following a wave of mass protests around the capital Addis Ababa. It was a classic case of, if you give them an inch they will take a mile. 

Previously to the recent protests the Ethiopian government had released hundreds of political prisoners to ease mounting pressure. But as soon as they were released protests begun calling on Adis Ababa to release more. Desalegn, might have stuck his neck out, betting that by releasing some prisoners the tension would ease and when it didn’t, and in fact mounted, he jumped – or was he pushed out?

Leadership is not for the fainthearted. On one extreme side of the pendulum are the leaders – rare indeed, who with former US president Harry Truman profess that “The buck stops here” or on other side of the pendulum, the leaders who will take all the credit for all the good but no responsibility for any of the bad that happens in their time.

Whether one tends towards one side or the other is a function of their upbringing, mentoring and world view.

The moralists would like to believe it is a cut and dried subject. You are either one or the other, with no space for grey in between. But such people have often not had authority or leadership placed on their shoulders.

Imagine you become a leader. Say of Wakanda.

 Up to this point your credentials – academic, moral and reputation are beyond reproach.

The first thing you realise is that to get anything down you need power, the ability to influence people and events, without which you cannot bring your vision to life. But you also discover that you will not be allowed to go about your business unmolested. There are plans to unseat you no sooner have you assumed the throne, and not only from the official opposition. Even from within your own ranks. External agitators will not be left out too.

"Despite your best intentions in an effort to retain power, you may be forced to get dirty, doing or sanctioning actions you would never have dreamed of. And it is very possible that your desire to stay in charge even compromises your ability to achieve your program...

The longer you go down the murky road, the more you lose touch with reality, up to the point where like Zuma, you protest that you see no wrong you have done.

Meanwhile all of us standing on the sidelines wonder why you don’t resign and are shocked you show no remorse.

To avert the above scenario, what if you became a leader. But when faced with the above scenario, of needing to cling to power to manifest your vision, you instead choose to sell your vision far and wide, in the hope that a critical mass of your people will internalise it, so much so that, if the need arises you can step down, safe in the knowledge that your mission will be completed without you.

But as was pointed out to me, the same mechanism that propels one to leadership, the ego, would not allow such an act of selflessness. The ego demands that you take credit for your achievements, stepping down is not an achievement that seats well with the ego. So you soldier on convinced that you are doing good work and the moral questions are but a distraction. And at another extreme would argue that the end justifies the means.

Of course in our thought experiment above we assume that the leaders in question have goals beyond their own self-aggrandizement or enrichment.

"This in no way justifies why leaders, at every level of society,  behave the way they do, but is a partial explanation, a rough psychoanalysis of their motives, which may help in understanding and even dealing with them....

AGRICULTURE IS MORE THAN FARMING

The second annual Harvest Money Expo held this weekend was a great success, judging by the number of people who trooped to Namboole for the event.

It’s heartening to see too that the interest in agriculture is being shown by all classes of people. Heartening because to fulfil our agricultural potential as a country we have to have all hands on deck, because as it is, while we feed ourselves, we have not even begun to scratch the surface of what we are capable of.

As it is now everyone is being encouraged to get into production, which is as it should be, because we need to produce more to take advantage of economies of scale and more importantly to kick start the agribusiness sector that will create thousands of jobs.

"The truth is the hundreds of jobs we need will not be created on the farm. As production methods become more mechanised there will be less use for manual labour. It is arguable that, with the entrance of more computerised processes in the factories even there manual labor will be required less and less. 

But for us here that might still be some time away.

In the US at the end of the Second World War there were 30 million farming families, people who derived a livelihood directly from their land, today they are under three million. The rest have gone to work in industry and services.

Chances are that is the same way our agriculture will go too.

However when we think of agriculture we only think about growing crops or rearing animals. The right way to think about agriculture is as a value chain, where production is just one part of a whole chain and not necessarily, the beginning.

For argument’s sake let us start on the farm. So one can be the farmer who produces the crop or rears the animals. But one can also be the person who deals in the inputs – tools, drugs, fertiliser, herbicides or pesticides. Down the chain one can be the trader who buys the produce or the warehouse owner who provides storage or the man with the grinding mill or the trucks to ferry the produce to the market. Further down one can be the exporter or the processor. If we want to be more sophisticated one can be the breeder or the nursery bed owner who sells to the farmer. Or one can even be in finance, specialising in meeting the sectors peculiar needs for money. And we haven’t even started yet.

Getting down and dirty on the farm may not be your thing. And that is fine. There are many ways one can insert themselves into the value chain.

One farmer I know after fumbling for close to a decade has found his niche. He is going to be a breeder of quality dairy animals. While dairy cows on the regular market can go for up to a million he is already selling his animals at more than five million shillings a cow.

Interestingly he zero grazes his herd of about 40 animals and has managed yields of up to 40 liters of milk daily. The shed occupies under an acre of land, the remaining 40 cares he uses to produce the silage to feed the cows. When we last talked he had silage to last more than a year and half.

He pointed out to me too, that one can decided to only grow hay for sale to the market. There is already demand, which he anticipates will grow with time.

Another person is exploring the use of coffee as an ingredient in cosmetics. She has set up her supply chain, her production facilities and is in advanced stages of product development.

Quality cuts has no herds of its own. It buys its meat from the market and packages that for sale in the super markets.

Dutch Radobank is one of the world’s biggest agricultural bank, which while it has other traditional banking products, is on the cutting age of financing agribusiness at home and around the world.

It is important that we appreciate this perspective because for our agriculture to reach its full potential the whole value chain, from farm to plate, has to be well developed. Specialisations up and down the chain have to be created.

"Of course if our production is not adequate we cannot develop specialisation and the temptation will always be for people in the sector to try and do it all. A nice ego trip but which does not lend itself to efficiency....

To support industry we need to produce much more than we are actually producing right now. Businessman Patrick Bitature pointed out in a commentary last week that in 2007 we produced about 14,000 tons of tomatoes. That is the equivalent of 700 20-ton containers.

Sounds impressive until you try and workout what that means for industry.

A small tomato paste processing plant which goes for about $10,000 (sh37m) can go through a ton an hour of tomatoes, he pointed out. Assuming 50 plants – one in every two districts, working 12 hours a day it would take less than a month to process Uganda’s annual crop.

Simple math shows that to have these plants optimally employed throughout the year, we would need at least 168,000 tons or 12-times the 2007 output to make these processing plants viable.

And I am sure the same calculation can be applied to any product we hope to produce.

THE UGANDA SUGAR INDUSTRY IS COLLAPSING, DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T TELL YOU

There is a real danger that the sugar industry in this country will not be around in 20 , ten , even five years if government continues to fold its arms and do nothing about current developments.

A bit of background should help put the scene in context.

Uganda’s sugar industry goes back to the early 20^th century when the precursors of the Kakira Sugar Works and Sugar Company of Uganda Ltd (SCOUL) planted their first seedlings in Kakira outside Jinja and in Lugazi respectively.

By the time of independence we were already self-sufficient in sugar production with the addition of Kinyara Sugar in western Uganda.

The Idi Amin era and the expulsion of the Asians in 1972 sent our production back to scratch. The industry has only been resuscitated in the last 30 or so years.

The three major players have used the time tested method of using outgrowers to supplement the sugar cane harvested from their nucleus plantations.

They have helped the outgrowers with seedlings, credit and other extension services to ensure the productivity of their farms, in addition they have provided social services like health and education for their areas.

In fact seeing as government has forgotten how to promote agriculture, the ministry would do well to study these industrial estates to learn how to support farmers in increasing the productivity of their farms.

"Until the turn of the century the three big sugar concerns have been expanding their production to the point that we are currently the only country in the community that has a surplus of sugar, meaning that we do not have to import sugar...

But they haven’t stopped there. The three industry have created supplementary industries – power generation and ethanol manufacture from the by-products of sugar production.

Of all the industries government has tried to grow the sugar industry has been the most successful. 

They are the largest employer of any industry with at least 20,000 direct employees and tens of thousands more of people employed up and down the supply lines.  Last year financial between themselves they paid about sh300b in taxes. And from nearly zero 30 years ago installed capacity has been beefed to crush 400,000 tons per annum.

But in a classic case of biting the hand that feeds it government through its indifference or even worse out right collusion is overseeing the collapse of the industry.

In the last decade government has licensed more than half a dozen mills to crush cane without a corresponding increase in the acreage of sugar plantation. It does not take rocket scientist to work out that the sugar cane has to come from existing plantations.

"The trade ministry has disingenuously argued that there is no law that prohibits the licensing of sugar millers. The existing policy, issued in 2010, while it lays out the parameters within which the sugar industry will operate, has not got the force of law the ministry argues. In the meantime they has been a pointed lack of urgency in passing a law for the sector. We know that if this government wants something passed it will be passed in double quick time. Passing the Sugar Bill, 2016 is clearly not one of its priorities....

It should be because not only have these new operators disrupted the operations of existing players --- they claim they are plants are now working at only 47 percent but thousands of tons of sugar have been smuggled into the country, meaning existing players are just stockpiling the sweetener – 600,000 bags at last count, priced out of the market by the smuggled sugar.

The three major producers have only just expanded their production capacity to take advantage of regional opportunities having planned for the increased acreage under cane, which they now find is being poached voraciously.

The Uganda sugar industry faces the real danger of going the way of their Kenyan counterparts. Kenya, who supplied the region in the days when our sugar industry was in doldrums, have seen their industry collapse following a similar pattern as is happening in Uganda, a deliberate conspiracy between the sugar importing cartels and corrupt government officials. As a result the government has opened the flood gates for imported sugar to come in unabated.

At the height of its powers Kenya’s sugar industry was producing almost 700,000 metric tons of sugar annually and has still been brought to its knees. Uganda at its peak in 2015 produced 420,000 tons of sugar.

The big three are not angels and their might be legitimate concerns about how they do business, but that is not cause to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

THE SWEETNESS HAS GONE OUT OF UGANDA’S SUGAR INDUSTRY

What started off as a few small-scale industries trying to cut a niche in the established sugar producing industry has grown, in contravention of established policy, to the point that the existence of Uganda’s sugar industry is in danger of total collapse in a few years if nothing is done.

"A sign of things to come was the announcement at the end of last year of Kakira Sugar Works , the country’s biggest producer announcing plans to lay off 4,000 of its 9,400 workforce...

Writing to the National Union Plantation and Allied Workers (NUPAW) In October last year Kakira Sugar Works general manager Chrisitian Vincke reported,

“As you are no doubt aware, this serious situation has been allowed to happen because of the rampant licensing of new sugar factories in our area in complete disregard of the sugar zoning policy…. These new factories have been allowed to install large capcities in spite of the fact they do not have their own nucleus estate.”

In 2010 in response to the creeping expansion of the “jaggeries”, government approved a sugar policy that would not only protect existing investments but ensure the long term sustainability of the industry and maintain their competitiveness in order to export sugar to the region.

"Among safeguards in the policy that no new mills should be licensed with a radius of 25 km from existing mills, new sugar factories should have a nucleus plantation of at least 500 hectares and that jaggeries or open pan mills can only be licensed outside the cane growing areas...

Industry players have not been alone in complaining that the policy is being flaunted with impunity.

President Yoweri Museveni  has written on three separate occasions first in July 2013 and the last time being last year in June, to Trade minister Amelia Kyambade directing that the policy should be implemented to the letter.

He lamented that the because of the delay in the implementation of the sugar policy small factories had mushroomed in the Busoga sugarcane growing areas affecting sugar production in the area.

The effects of this have begun to tell.

Because of the increased competition for sugar cane, with no additional fields planted, the ensuing shortage of cane to the factories has led to a drop in production.

In July Kakira reported that its factory was working at 47 percent capacity, it was only supplying 8.6 MW of power to grid compared to 34 MW in the past and ethanol production was down to by half.

The amount of sugarcane crushed by Kakira has fallen from 2.1 million tons in 2014/15 and is projected to be 1.55 million tons this season, the continuation of a downward trend. Last year 1.71 million tons were crashed.

Sugar production has followed a similar trend. This year it is projected that 130,000 tons will be produced down from 145,888 tons last year and 180,000 tons in 2014/15.

However the guerrilla producers have not restricted their underhand practices to the Busoga region.

Last year Kinyara Sugar Ltd  complained that in a repetition of the trend in Busoga “Over 50 portable illegal jiggery mills have also migrated from Busoga settling in Masindi for the making of alcohol from stolen sugarcane,” they said in a concept note.

“In the last ten months Kinyara has recorded a loss of 3,200 hectares of cane to the vice.”

The western Uganda sugar producer also reported that a new crime of cane fires has erupted, allegedly fuelled by middle men who can then bargain for the burnt cane at a lower price.

Kinyara estimates that the loss to the treasury amounts to about sh27.5b and an additional loss of sh32.85b in unrealised taxable revenue as the cane that is diverted is not subject to tax.

However it’s not only the established sugar factories that are suffering.

In an attempt to cash in quickly farmers are now selling immature sugar cane.

“Currently farmers in Busoga region are harvesting 13 to 14 months old cane. This is extremely dangerous. With early harvesting that is prevailing in Busoga, farmers are losing approximately five tons of additional cane every month. This results in farmers losing approximately sh3.5million per hectare annually,” Kakira Sugar Works reported.

In Busoga sugar cane is harvested after 18 to 20 months. Harvesting it earlier will mean less sugar per ton of cane.

"The net effect of the current developments in the sector, “Leaves the contractor unpaid, farmers underpaid, the miller indebted lacking raw material, introduces new crime waves, creates unemployment and leaves our national tax revenue depleted,” Kinyara concluded...

As a way to redress the issue the trade ministry has started the process of enacting the Sugar Bill Act 2016. The bill was approved by cabinet in January 2016 and the first reading was done in parliament a year later in January 2017.

However some new amendments were proposed after consultation, minister Kyambade said in a letter to the president, which would delay the law’s enactment even further.

The lack of urgency on the government’s side – it has almost been a decade since the sugar policy was adopted, lends itself to speculation that licensing of sugar mills in the traditional sugar growing areas is being supported by powerful officials and raises the real fear that the industry may very well collapse in a few years’ time.

“The reason these pirates are stealing cane is because the bigger investment is in setting up the plantations, both nucleus and out growers, if the big companies go under you think these small players will fork out the cash?” an industry player said.

The current players between themselves have invested just under a trillion shillings over the last three decades to maintain and expand their operations.

According to the National Organisation of Trade Unions (NOTU) at least 25,000 of their members are employed in the sugar industry but the industry is not big to fail given the hostile operating environment they are working in now.

Across the border in Kenya the shutdown of Mumias Sugar works in western Kenya was the culmination of developments as are happening in Uganda today, where the Kenya government folded its arms as illegal millers raided the heartland of sugar growing.

At its peak Mumias would crush 7,000 tons of cane daily or about 2.6million tons a year and it accounted for 60 percent of Kenya’s sugar production. Shut down for most of last year for lack of cane to crush it made a tentative return to the market in November but industry observers are not hopeful it will survive.

In recent years the Kenya government has channeled up to Kshs2b (sh70b) to try and resuscitate the ailing giant but to no avail. Reports last month were that an additional Kshs4b would be required to rescue Mumias, with arrears to farmers at about sh600m (sh21b).

"To bridge the gap the Kenyans have imported 950,000 tons against local demand of 800,000 tons with the surplus expected to filter across the border to Uganda...

The industry is already feeling it. There about 600,000 bags of local production that currently remain unsold.

“We are joking in Uganda. We either are selfishly pursuing our own gain at the expenses of tens of thousands of employees and farmers or we have no concept of how devastating a collapse on the industry wold have on the economy,” one industry player said.

MOWZEY’S DEATH BEYOND TRAGIC

Last week one of Uganda’s most talented artist’s Mowzey Radio aka Moses Ssekibogo, died after fighting for his life in a hospital bed for a week, his situation the result of a barroom brawl.

It was tragic on many fronts and not only because he was a talent who still had much to offer, but also because he died young. He was 33 at the time of his death.

But it is also an indicator of how far we have to go as a country, as an economy.

A comparable star in a more developed economy would never had been manhandled the way Mowzey was. Not because the bouncers there are well behaved – far from it. Or because the glitterati don’t get into scuffles – it is the fodder of the tabloids. But because in a more developed economy a star like Mowzey would either not be in that bar or no one would be allowed to touch him.

And it would not be because Mowzey was a poser, but because the commercial interests that have an interest in his wellbeing and that he continues to do what he does best, would ensure nothing averse befell the young talent.

Let’s take American rapper and producer Jay Z. He and he is wife Beyonce, are dollar billionaires as a couple.

The major part of their net worth comes from the collaborations they have with corporate America. Jay Z has lucrative contracts with sportswear company Reebok, Budweiser not to mention equity interests in a host of companies in the entertainment, real estate, beverages, sports management worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“I am not a businessman. I am a business, man!” Jay Z once said...

As it is in Uganda now, through no fault of the artists, corporate Uganda’s interest in them peaks at their sponsored shows and beyond that they really don’t care what happens to them.

So imagine these young men and women running around the city, even the country, from one gig to the next pulling down as much as five million shillings and appearance at one time. With money in their pockets they indulge their hormone driven desires to the extent that their money can go. The bigger the star the harder he or she plays.

And it is not that Jay Z is well behaved. In fact his background makes our artists look like choir boys. Jay Z by his own admission sold cocaine as a kid, shot his older brother and was even shot three times before his twentieth birthday. Mowzey was graduate of Makerere University.

Jay Z’s turnaround is not because he saw the light. But because he had contractual obligations to more entities than himself. When you put pen to paper in a multimillion dollar contract to be a brand manager of this or that company, you can rest assured their clauses to what behaviour’s constitute a breach of contract. At that point too he becomes an asset to the company he endorses and they will ensure to protect that asset so that they can extract maximum value from it.

Every so often an artist in those economies falls off the tracks. But it is news because it does not happen often.

It may sound cruel and cold, but isn’t that what we as employees sign onto when we take a job?

The situation has evolved over decades. Before they became billboards for or even better, went into equity partnerships with corporate America, entertainers used to crash and burn in their youth – Eazy E, Elvis Presley and Frankie Lymon spring to mind.

And when you study the history of US entertainment it is often times the mangers of these talents who made the intellectual shift to realise the business was not only fun and games, and that if they were to make more money and have their music go international it could not be business as usual.

"Mowzey’s death can be the line that marks a departure from the past towards a more professional set up not only in music but in drama and sport as well...

That our entertainers will be seen as more than just talented youth but assets who have a value to more than just themselves. Given the short career span entertainers have it is even more important that their value is maximised and their earning potential is stretched to a time well beyond when their careers have dimmed.

Local artists in the last decade edged out Congolese and South African music and took control of our night scene. To ascend to the next level they need to get more organised, more professional or as unthinkable as it sounds, foreign artists can very well come back.

"It is a scandal even criminal that Mowzey Radio goes out the way he has. Hopefully he is bringing as much joy where he is now as he did on earth. RIP. ...

KENYA’S POLITICS, A CASE OF TWO STEPS FORWARD ONE STEP BACK

This week Raila Odinga purported to take an oath as the people’s president of Kenya.

The much anticipated event was noteworthy not only because of Raila’s swearing but also by the conspicuous absence of Kalonzo Musyoka, who was supposed to be sworn too as his deputy.

Musyoka’s absence had two effect on the politics going forward. One, is claim to be heir apparent to Raila as leader of the opposition may have suffered a fatal blow. Wycliff Mudavadi who was also absent will struggle to lay claim to the mantle too.

"But the events may also have given Raila, who it was believed had run his last challenge for state house a new lease of life. Raila can now argue, and convincingly that he has brought his people this far on the journey to Canaan and it would be irresponsible of him to pass over the mantle to people who cannot stand by the struggle at one of its most important junctions. There are no age limits to run for the presidency in Kenya...

So what seemed like clutching at straws, that the swearing would draw massive crowds and once done would ignite a groundswell of civil unrest which would push Uhuru Kenyatta out or at least force him to sue for peace, may have turned out to be very good for Raila anyway. Time will tell.

The events have very useful lessons for Uganda.

While some people think that Raila’s theatrics and the subsequent response of the Kenyan government in shutting down the media has dented the East African nation’s democratic credentials, I think otherwise.

Democracy is an evolutionary process. The process is essentially a series of experiments which allows the fittest of the fittest to survive. For faster evolution you need a rapid succession of experiments to happen, essentially you have to fail faster to allow the best to emerge quicker.

Raila challenged the first election of Uhuru and had the Supreme Court throw it out setting a useful precedent for time to come. Raila boycotted the rerun, unthinkable but setting another precedent. His civil disobedience campaign may have fallen flat since but still helps the democratic process.

On the flip side Raila is also learning the lessons of our very own opposition. That no matter how much bombast you can muster if your networks are not in place, if you are not prepared for the worst and if you think that you can shame the powers that be into good behaviour when you think they are out of line, good luck!

"The pervasiveness of social media – seven in every ten Kenyans owns a smart phone, can seduce one into thinking they are more influential than they actually are. That you begin to think you can flip a switch and do away with the hard of work of building grassroot support and hope to pull off a smash-and-grab operation to get in to state house...

It is foolhardy, even downright foolish, to believe that the incumbents will give up without a fight.

But we can also learn from Kenyan politics.

That the courts are there to address disputes. That even if one loses precedent is created. The overturning of Kenyatta’s election hinged on a ruling made in his favour from an unsuccessful Raila challenge of his victory in 2012.

Courts cannot help you if you do not refer to them. Judges do not take it upon themselves to determine a breech of the law has been committed and order the suspects before themselves. One may argue of course, Like Raila did for a long time, that the courts are in the government’s pockets, but you won’t really know until they are tested. Put them to the test.

It was amusing to see commentators writing off Kenya as a county that has fallen off the democratic path, but that is not to understand the evolutionary process or development of anything for that matter.

Progress is never a straight line trajectory. It can often even seem like that regression has taken root. 

But as they say failure is not the opposite of success but part of success.

Events in Kenya rather than dented our eastern neighbours’ political progress will in hindsight have been crucial to strengthen it democratic progression.