The COVID-19 pandemic forced the lockdown in March – the restriction of movement and congregation, which ground the economy to a near a halt.
For the first time since the second world war, the effect was felt globally, nobody was spared.
In Uganda economic growth contracted in the first half of the year, after growing about seven percent in the last half of last year. As a result the economy grew by 3.1 percent in the financial year that ended in June. For the whole of 2020 we will be lucky to make three percent growth.
But those are the big numbers. The smaller numbers, which add up to the bigger numbers, are beginning to trickle in to confirm the anecdotal evidence all around us.
As far as James Ngetich was concerned 2020 was going to be his year. He had secured land in eastern Uganda on which he was growing to grow barley and sorghum, key inputs in the beer industry. He had been preparing with the local agent to go in aggressively – he was going to put just under 10 acres, under grain hoping to scale up in coming seasons to 50 acres available to him.
"When he toasted to the new year, Ngetich was seeing only dollar signs, well into the future...
He was not alone. Easily another hundred farmers around the village were also throwing in their lot with the project or were already actively involved.
Then Covid-19 happened. The hospitality industry – bars, restaurants hotels and concerts were shut down. The breweries demand for his and his friends crop evaporated and literally collapsed the economy of the county.
People dug up their fields and replaced their crop with maize and beans. This whole event left a bad taste in their mouth.
The partial lifting of the lock down in June did not salvage the situation.
The events of the last week, with the hosting of an illegal concert and the arrest and release of the Nigerian highlighters, only served to accentuate the pain the hospitality industry is going through.
Using the beer industry as a proxy the effect up and down the industry has been nothing short of devastating.
"While the bar owners have been the loudest in advocating for a reopening of the sector, with good cause, as they are the biggest employers along the value chain, millions are licking their wounds in relative silence....
Grain farmers like Ngetich saw their revenues plummet sh19b from the pre-Covid figure of sh76b. And that is an average figure some farmers suffered a total loss of income as their harvests were not taken up or they didn’t bother planting.
The numbers while dramatic belie a greater suffering than they can capture.
Oguttu who found work as a turn boy loading and offloading beer crates off distributor trucks in Kampala, was laid off unceremoniously and this meant more than loss of income.
His sh7500 daily income – lunch was provided, allowed him to propose to his girlfriend with the Kwanjula set for June. With the loss of work in February, his girlfriend got tired of endless stories and drew the line on postponing the Kwanjula. He is now single, searching and trying hard to get back on his feet...
Oguttu's earnings, while merger are life changing to him, can be counted among the sh1.7trillion lost in the distribution arm of the beer value chain.
"Bar" owner Mama boy in a Kampala suburb is thankful too that schools were closed otherwise she doesn’t know how she would have paid for her six school going children – two are her own and the other four are nephews and nieces.
As the “manager” of a bar, whose whole furniture component is two benches, outside her friend’s shop she has seen a total collapse in her take home, even despite the June secret reopening of her bar – everyone has to buy at least a samosa before they can buy a beer, to justify the addition of restaurant to the establishment’s name.
She maybe one of the smaller ones but bars have seen their revenues more than halved to sh1.1trillion from sh2.8 trillion according to industry numbers.
And the bleeding goes on and on wherever you look.
"Its hard to be sympathetic to the breweries, revenues are down by sh416b from the pre-COVID number of about sh900b, but they anchor a value chain that sustains more than six million people....
These standard Operating procedures (SOPS) in the fight against COVID are washing hands, wearing masks in public and social distancing all of which are hard to enforce in the hospitality industry, which by their very definition require a coming together of people.
But like all else in life, there is the other side of the coin, which in this case is the millions of Ugandans deprived of a livelihood because the hospitality industry continues to be under lock down.
Infections have been spiking in recent days – we are set to hit 30,000 cumulative infections by year end, but the case for loosening the restrictions on the hospitality industry is a hard one to ignore. This is bigger than the beer companies and the bars.
Let government talk with the industry to determine how they can hold them accountable in enforcing SOPS, let the industry organise themselves to ensure its members adhere to the SOPs.
