EAST AFRICA DOES NOT NEED THESE SQUABBLES

The leaders of the eleven east and central african countries converged on Kampala this week in the wake of flare up of military activity in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While that was of major concern the apparent fallout between Tanzania and Rwanda over events in the central African nation is what will guarantee higher government presence than a recurrence of the now perennial eastern Congo skirmishes.

At the time of writing Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame was in the country and his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete was expected.

The spurt between the two nations was sparked off by comments by Kikwete in the African Summit in May that Rwanda should negotiate with FDLR rebels holed up in eastern Congo. Speaking in the context of the Tanzania’s new leadership role in a peace mission in eastern Congo, Kikwete also said Uganda should tall to the ADF rebels.

The FDLR are the remnants of the government forces and supporters, accused of perpetrating the 1994 genocide in which more 800,000 Rwandans died. They retreated into the Congo from where Kigali claims they continue to plot a return by force of arms.

Both countries dismissed the suggestion – Rwanda more forcefully than Uganda, arguing that the rebels were criminals who should be brought to justice and not political actors with whom negotiations would be an option.

Since then a series of events have occurred whose timing suggest that Tanzania and Rwanda are not going to let it lie.

Last month Tanzania expelled immigrants, most of whom were of Rwandese origin, from its northern regions bordering Uganda and Rwanda. On Sunday last week Rwanda hiked fees on Tanzanian trucks entering the country three-fold a development that has caused congestion on the border.

Other subsequent incidents many minor, most unreported have served to accentuate the perception that all is not well between Dar es Salaam and Kigali.

The chattering classes went into overdrive when Kikwete did not appear at a regional infrastructure conference in the Mombasa last week and when it was eventually reported that Tanzania was looking to President Yoweri Museveni to intercede between Dar es Salaam and Kigali.

To dismiss the tension between the two East African Community (EAC) partners as a minor irritation is to ignore the key role each play in the region’s ambitions.

The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

The people of our region want better lives than they currently experience – at least four in ten east African’s live in abject poverty, a situation that is unfathomable when viewed against the rich natural endowments of the region.

The attempts to build the EAC is testament to the fact that our leaders recognise the extent of this challenge but even more importantly, realize they cannot go it alone. We all need to be pulling in the same direction or we do not benefit to the full extent that we can.

For us mere mortals, we would rather have it that our politicians sort out their tiffs in private while driving the integration agenda publically and forcefully.

The Kampala meeting is a good start, better that than us poor civilians being caught in the cross fire of your egos.

And if it may not have occurred, not everyone wishes us the best. The progress the EAC has made in the last decade, its potential to unlock the region’s promise and the example it will serve for others on the continent and around the world is the envy of many and may not be welcome news for the envisaged collective strength of the region that would result.

It is also very possible that these spurts are being engineered by  or are playing into our detractors’ hands. We need to think about that.

MOMBASA PORT, RAILWAY MUCH NEEDED INVESTMENTS

Last week President Yoweri Museveni and his counterparts from Rwanda and Kenya commissioned the Mombasa port extension.

The extension will increase the port’s capacity by almost a third to just over a million containers a year and is expected to help in reducing delays at the port. As it is now it takes about 22 days for a container to get a container from Mombasa to Kampala and this is without factoring in the 10 to 14 days a ship will have to wait when it arrives in Mombasa before it can be berthed.

This has cost implications with shippers paying up to $12,000 (sh32.5m) a day in demurrage fees, which cost is invariably past on to the end consumer.

Clearly this investment was long overdue but is only the beginning of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s  drive to consolidate his country’s position as the region’s logistic hub.

Construction is already underway for the development of another port at Lamu and Tanzania is making appropriate sounds about beefing the capacity of their 500,000 container a year port at Dar es Salaam.

 There is no getting around it. If we are to fully exploit the region’s potential we have to bit the bullet and invest the billions of dollars required to bring our infrastructure to basic standards.

A key investment that needs to be working at optimal levels to derive maximum benefits from our investments on the coast is the Kenya-Uganda railway.

The teething problems for this line’s concession seem s to have been ironed out with entrance of Cairo based equity partner Citadel Capital in 2010.

Kenya and Uganda in 2006 privatized their parts of the railway to a consortium led by private operator Sheltham, which in turn gave way to Citadel in 2010 as the anchor investor in the RVR concession. Citadel’s partners are Kenyan investment form Transcentury and Uganda’s Bomi Holdings.

Since January last year $156m has been invested, monies that went into rehabilitating sections of the line, refurbishing wagons and locomotives and incorporating a GPS train tracking and its accompanying systems.

Despite this massive investment – more money than has been invested on the line for nearly 20 years, volumes are nowhere near where they were in the 1970s, about four million tons per year.

The need for such massive investment cannot be overestimated. What seems to be the challenge in this part of the world is how to bring the required expertise and the necessary funding to deliver on such projects.

It was therefore useful that Citadel took an interest in this project when it did. The firm, which controls $9.5b in investments spread around 15 countries has the connections and access to finance needed.

Over five years $287m in investment will be required, this is inclusive of the $156m already deployed.

It helps too that Citadel is an African company whose appreciation of the risk and how to mitigate against it in a way that the money bags understand comes in handy.

Capital is a coward. Money from the financial capitals’ of the world will forgo higher returns on the continent because they don’t know how to appraise risk here.

Reminds me of the story of MTN”s entrance into Uganda. At the time going by the accessible studies by the donors, Uganda was not ready for mobile technology. Those studies showed there were challenges of inadequate demand, unclear licensing issues and unknown risks they could not even factor into their projections. It took local investor Charles Mbiire to commit his own funds as a local partner to make them take another look. The company used the Uganda experience as a spring board into the continent and the rest as they say is history.

Citadel does the same on a much larger scale, acting as the hand holder as foreign investment tries to secure a foothold on the continent, now touted as the final frontier for exponential growth.

What we need now is for our bureaucrats to understand this and reappraise their role in how they should facilitate these type of investors do what they have failed abysmally to organize since independence.

For example RVR has to pay a concession fees off their gross revenues. Whereas they have paid over $53m in the  last three years and this may look good with treasury, this could have been money better spent investing on the business with ripple effect of this investment much more beneficial to the population.

Maybe that is a bridge we have to cross further down the road.

MILLIONS AND RAISING KIPROTICHS

Last week President Yoweri Museveni was in a generous mood. He hosted the World Championship athletics team to lunch at his country home Rwakitura. While there he gave about sh1b in cash prizes and a brand new Mitsubishi Pajero and house to gold medalist marathoner Stephen Kiprotich.

He hosted the Uganda Cranes at state house Entebbe where he unleashed another sh900m to transport the team and some fans to a crucial world cup qualifying match in Morocco next week.

Meanwhile he pledged a state stipend to medal winning athletes and suggested the possibility of a similar facility for Uganda Cranes players.

Both occasions made for great headlines.

"In terms of raw symbolism, as an indicator of government’s renewed interest in sport nothing can really beat the President’s largesse however more, much more has to be done for sports in coming years....

And for sustainable results the government need not be the greatest contributor to this sporting renaissance.

To paraphrase it takes a nation to grow a gold medalist. Everybody has to be involved.

The inexorable march of development has put paid to the sprawling Naguru housing estate.

The Lugogo sports complex, now whittled down to the indoor stadium, cricket oval and tennis courts but which previously included the lands on which the Lugogo Mall and UMA show grounds now stand, provided a welcome release for children of Naguru with the unintended consequence of being the hub of sporting excellence.

We have to start with creating the space for the children to explore their talent. To begin with the hot money speculating in real estate is uninterested or aware of their obligations to provide these playing fields. So for starters government should enforce or enact laws that provide for open spaces within these mushrooming housing developments.

The same should be done for schools.

The schools, housing playgrounds and public parks will then feed into nationwide initiatives to identify and groom the talent that will populate the league clubs and national teams.

"If the government as a bare minimum enforced the law and maintained open spaces, the sporting associations can kick in to tap talent from the grassroot network and attracting corporate sponsorship to support national events and teams...

Across from us in Kenya the countries legacy of great middle and long distance runners the truth be told, had more to do with the distances the kids run to school in the Kenyan rift valley, the wide expanses over which they had to tend the family goat herds and maybe the genetic predisposition needed to live in the highlands, passed down the generations.

The Kenyan government however supported these budding athletes by sustaining a national schools’ athletics championship, incorporating them into the armed forces and of course ensuring peace and stability, which allowed this serendipitous pipeline to keep doing what it does – churning out winning athletes.

It will be interesting to see when the kids don’t have to run so far or tend goats any more, whether Kenya’s dominance in those fields will be sustained. Already Kiprotich has shown them up on two occasions.

"The associations in their part need to wean themselves from this dependence on government handouts. The attraction of this money is easy to see; accountability is not mandatory...

Our associations, largely amateur operations run by elected leaders not necessarily chosen for their managerial abilities, will need to work out how to repackage their events, attract crowds and it make it more attractive for companies to come to their aid.

Corporate Uganda’s pockets are shockingly deep when presented with a well packaged selling proposition on which to pin their flag. See the Kampala Kid’s League.

And finally parents.

The pool of world beaters is often drawn from the less privileged classes, who see sport as not only an avenue to douse the children’s raging hormones, keep them out of trouble, but as a real possibility of making a living.

The middle class have a dismal record of nurturing talent in the popular sports. That need not be the case.

Tennis professional Tommy Haas, as a 14 year old fell short in a battery of tests that would afford him support by the German Tennis Association.  His father who believed in his son’s talent brought together a few friends, created a company with his son Tommy, as the main asset and raised $100,000 to support a drive to turn him into a professional athlete.

Haas, now 35, the highest ranked German tennis player, is in the twilight of a career that has spurned almost two decades, earned him more than $12m and paid off his initial backers many times over.

"The President’s millions are welcome – after all its not everyday that we are celebrating gold medalists but a more institutionalized process of nurturing and rewarding our athletes will be welcome as well...

IS THIS THE START OF A NEW WOMEN'S MOVEMENT?

This week Makerere University student Elizabeth Nakamya dragged her father to court for refusing to pay her tuition.

Her father John Wampamba estranged from Nakamya’s mother had not paid her fees since primary school.

She felt compelled to take action when the burden of her fees as a software engineering student became too much to handle for her mother.

A suggestion for the family to first try arbitration was rejected by Nakamya who said her father had turned down all previous family meetings to resolve the issue.

The magistrate ruled in her favour despite Wampamba’s protestations that he is unable to raise the sh2m required in two weeks.

Like many turning points this story may go unnoticed, buried deep in the paper, but it could be an inspiration for a new movement that holds men to their responsibilities.

Evolutionary theory in trying to explain men’s promiscuousness suggests that it is a natural instinct in aid of propagating the specie.

Although recent research has also suggested that the human male is less promiscuous than some of its animal relatives. Human children are the most capital intensive animals to rear, staying at home until past their eighteenth birthday in many cases the longest of any animal. This dependence also makes it necessary for the male parent to stick around to ensure his offspring survives to continue his blood line. As a result of the considerable investment therefore men are less likely to take too kindly to raising another man’s children.

According to the theory monogamy, the hope that by sticking around the wife will stay on the straight and narrow, is the tradeoff human males pay to perpetuate their genes.

Our patrilineal practices picking and choosing from an intuitive and maybe flawed understanding of evolutionary theory, relegate the girl child to a lesser position to her brothers because – among other things, she will be lost to the clan one day anyway so why invest in her?

Well Nakamya’s action may very well force a change of our society’s attitudes towards women, the girl child and contraception.

If we wrote into law the clause that we are all equal under the law just to meet some donor criteria and really did not believe it, Nakamya has called our bluff.

Why should she be treated any different from any of her father’s other children? Because she is a daughter?

In my first year in secondary school the headmaster speaking to us one day let loose with the advice that we should never drop our pants for a woman who we cannot foresee being the mother of our children. Basically that if you sleep with a woman you better be prepared to deal with the consequences.

But even at that time there was contraception that would allow for the times when you were not quite sure, maybe.

And yes it’s foolhardy for one to abrogate their reproductive responsibility to another --  male or female.

In December 1955 the diminutive Rosa Parks refused to forfeit her chair in the bus for a white passenger. She was arrested. She was not the first person to refuse to cede her seat or even charged for flouting segregation laws but her case stood out because it was used to challenge segregation laws subsequently.

Known variously as “the first lady of civil rights” her defiance that December evening in Alabama triggered a series of developments which eventually saw Barak Obama rise to the highest office in the US five years ago.

Will Nakamya be the Ugandan woman’s Rosa Parks?

LET’S AGROPROCESS… EASIER SAID THAN DONE!

It should be straight forward. To increase rural incomes increase the productivity of their farms so they can build surpluses that can be sold to the market.

But the devil they say is in the detail. Increasing farm yields would have to involve improving farm practices – fertilizer use, irrigation and lower post-harvest losses and on am more macro level rejig land tenure systems, resuscitate cooperatives and avail financial products tailored to the sector.

OK so the farmer improves his yields. We know the market is there -- you will be shocked how much the residents of Kampala alone consume. Thankfully too Kampala’s consumers don’t have such high standards for what they consume.

So we have increased yields and there is a market the question is how do you connect one to the other.

It goes beyond just loading trucks at source and unloading them at the market. There are issues of post–harvest processing, storage, packaging, quality assurance and to name but a few.

So while we may lament our farmers’ poor productivity there are serious deficiencies in the value chain before we can even begin agro-manufacturing on a sustainable scale.

For the time being a lot of our manufacturers are doing these intermediate processes themselves, but is an inefficient way of doing things. Their speciality is not buying, transporters and storage. Unfortunately there are few companies that can intercede between the farmer and have the confidence of the manufacturers.

Enter Savannah Commodities. The company tucked away on an acre of land in industrial area does the bulking, processing and storage of coffee for export, but also does the same for maize, barley and sorghum more for use by local industry.

The decade-old company, the brainchild of Hannington Karuhanga, is now looking to triple its processing capacity with a new multi-million dollar facility they are developing in Mukono, where they shall shift all their grain processing leaving the coffee facility in industrial area.

“It is the only logical thing to do. We need to move up the value chain not only to capture more of the value for ourselves, but it’s the only way we will improve rural incomes in a sustainable manner,” Karuhanga said recently.

As it is now through processing his own coffee contracts and hiring his plant to others, the industrial area plant is the biggest single processor of coffee in this country.

His eleven years of experience in exporting coffee and now processing of grain for the local market give Karuhanga a real appreciation of what it will take to build up this part of the value chain.

“This is a real capital intensive business. We have painstakingly built up capacity on our plot here but we have gone as far as we can and need to move out and hence the Mukono development,” said Hannington, who cut his teeth in the coffee business with a local affiliate of Swiss coffee trading giant, Sucafina.

“In moving to the next level we cannot get away from it there is an urgent need for development financing in this market, for money that has longer tenure periods than the ones we have on the market,” he said.

Savannah was recently at the center of a financing snag at Uganda Development Bank (UDB). An $11m facility that was to be used to finance the Mukono expansion was halted erroneously in his view, but thankfully he was able to get alternative financing.

Barring any accidents, “The plant will be up and running in January,” he said.

The point is, he is quick to emphasise, that in order to transform the country we need to empower our local entreprenuers to build capacity to play at a higher level, otherwise he argues exploiting our agricultural potential will remain a pipe dream.

Savannah is one of our more developed proccessors, but there are numerous other agroprocessors struggling against incredible odds to survive.

Supporting this sector through improved transport and energy infrastructure and flexible financing would be just as strategic an intervention as any the government is currently pursuing.

MUST LEARN LESSONS FROM STEPHEN KIPROTICH

It is old news. Stephen Kiprotich last week won gold in the World Athletic Championships in Moscow. Like in London a year ago he took on the favourites – this time the Ethiopians, run them into the ground before strolling to a much deserved victory. 

For fear of stating the obvious Kiprotich is a national hero. But more importantly we can glean important lessons to apply to our daily lives.

So here goes my top four list of lessons to learn from the double gold medalist

#4. Aspire to substance over style

Life they say is a marathon not a sprint. You can’t blast out of the blocks and have nothing left over for the next 42 km.  You have to pace yourself. Though he comes from a humble background it means forgoing the home comforts of home with his family for weeks on end. It means logging hundreds of miles in the freezing cold of the Kenyan highland, running on nothing more than siturungi (black tea) and a half a loaf. It means battling through nagging injuries, flagging morale and frequent setbacks. It means pushing yourself beyond what you thought was humanly possible. To last the distance you have to have a higher goal than just attaining the simple luxuries of life, looking good around your friends or even winning gold. “I want to be a legend,” he told us before the London Olympics. One gold, or even two, do not a legend make.

#3. Ignore the illusion that you have arrived

If Kiprotich was a mere mortal like many of his Ugandan countrymen after bagging gold in London last year he would have hung his life size portrait on his seating room wall, put up his feet and begun to live “the” life. Thankfully he did not. He weathered the distractions of the post Olympics celebration to explore his potential further. Since the Olympics he has won a half marathon in Amsterdam, came in sixth in the London Marathon and now won the World Championships.

And if the young man is to be believed he is not done yet, “I know it’s not easy. But I want to become the first Ugandan to win these competitions twice,” he said referring to the Olympics and World Championships.

#2. No one is going to do the work for you

There is a lot of lack in Uganda. We lack good roads. We lack good leadership. We lack money. We lack shoes. The easy thing to do is blame our inadequacies on our lack and roll over and die. But Kiprotich has shown that lack is not an excuse. He had a dream and has gone about creating it. When his full story is eventually told -- the struggle, the despair, the pain, everything he has gone through the rest of us whiners, will shut up. US rapper 50 cent in reflecting on what Barak Obama has done for African Americans said, “Obama has taken away the excuses.”

#1 Repeat over and over again

There is method to his success and since he has done it himself and has shown he can reproduce the formula there is no reason we shouldn’t expect more of the same. That is how enduring success is created you search and search for a method that works for you, and when you do find it, you repeat it over and over again. But if we are always looking to short circuit the process, to find short cuts or are in pursuit of that “one” deal that will solve our lives problems for good, we will miss the benefit of the process and even if we enjoy some success when it fades away we will not know how to reproduce it.

In the 34 million Ugandans I am sure there are many more heros. Kiprotich is lucky – where luck is opportunity meeting preparation, to have his success celebrated by the whole world.

But yes, as a model of keeping nose to the grinding stone, ignoring friend, foe and even family’s initial skepticism about his dreams and remained steadfast in the wake of initial success, there are very few around we can show up to our children and say “Yes! Be like him. That is what a good man is made of.”