THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF YOUTH

Ashish Thakar has his hands in so many pies. He is the promoter of the $300m Kingdom Mall, the Kensington apartments and Riley Packaging. Contributing Editor Paul Busharizi caught up with him at the Dubai headquarters of his company, Mara and spoke to him about his business and plans.

Q. What’s the progress on your Kingdom Kampala Mall?

A. We are now doing the first phase which should be done by this time next year. This some retail space, serviced apartments and parking for 1200 cars. We are deciding on what to build next of the hotel – which we are glad to say will be run by the Hotel Intercontinental chain who want to make this their flagship facility in the region, shopping malls and the conference center.

We reshaped the whole design. We needed to be more careful, we need to consider the externals, the traffic, the surroundings. The aim is to make it a destination not a place you go to on your way to someplace else. We drive our inspiration from Dubai, this is a destination not a transit point. We are determined to build a memorable structure.

We thinks as a conference center our central location will be a great advantage. Unfortunately people think they can get away with anything in Uganda, we hope that when we are done we will set the bar for quality facilities not only in Uganda but in the region.

We want to empower people by transfer of technology so we have brought in experts on site who have done this often and around the world and understand our vision, they are working with Ugandan engineers, architects and designers to bring local context to the structure and learn something as well.

Q. You think there is space for one more mall in Kampala?

A.I think many of Ugandans travel abroad and they understand and appreciate quality and if they have it locally they will come, so there is definitely a market. The reason people  shop outside because they are not getting what they want locally, this will change things. But in addition the conference guests are going to mean a few hundred more visitors and clients to our facility so yes the project is definitely viable.  You don’t put down $300m solely on a whim.

Q. Given the investment don’t you think government should be doing more in terms of marketing the country abroad?

A. It’s a chicken and egg situation . If you don’t have the conference facilities to boast of then what do you market? As Mara we have developed a CD promoting Uganda. Its very well done and we want to pitch it to the CAA, that they have all airlines flying into Uganda showing that CD on Uganda, they do it here in Dubai why not at home? And it will cost nothing to them.

Beyond that there has to be a determined effort to come together by the public and private sector, it’s a two way street we need to do things with a long term view and then they can tick.

Q. We hear of political risk inour part of the world, dissuading would be investors, what  is your take?

A. I think this perception is hyped unnecessarily. I obviously have a different perception I understand the people,  I have been there and worked there and its not just me my father is even called Kakooza.

I have also found that African governments trust African businessmen. I am not going to come around and do a shoddy job, when I say I will do something I do it, I have too much invested beyond the money – family, reputation, my home.

It nmakes sense though to spread your wings get some foreign investors in as well but you never know really, how do  you know the man will not bust and just leave?

Q. Do you think governments are doing enough in attracting investment, creating jobs?

A.They simply are not doing enough. They still have this wrong idea that FDI will solve the employment issue, the answer is with the SMEs. The big companies have to be competitive so they are not going to have manual processes the are going to automate, so where are the jobs?

Q.You do some work with SMEs what are you learning?

A.We have been working with SMEs for a while now. The Mara Fund has been around for 12 years with it we help with incubation and mentorship and in a limited way we provide venture capital , small sums of $5,000 to $10,000. IN June we plan to launch Mara Women and we will have Graca Machel as our global ambassador.

There is amazing energy wherever we have been.  There is real fire in the belly, a desire to succeed. Seventy percent say there most immediate need is advise not money, they want mentors and more especially international mentors. They want to play in a bigger league which is really great.

We have created a mentorship platform mara.com that will go online in the next few weeks and later we intend take it on mobile – Blackberry and Nokia afterwards.

Q. What is the extent o f your interest on the continent? What are you looking to invest in?

A. We are present in 17 countries on the continent but we are very selective in the projects we get into. They have to have a pan African element, we are not interested in companies that want to operate in one country, it has to be a game changer – either it does something new or does existing things much better than existing models, it has to have a social impact and it is branded Mara.

Q. Last word for our local businessmen who want to stretch out into the world?

A. Our businessmen need to travel at several times a year and not just to do their businesses but to actually learn how things work in this countries. As it is now they are too conservative and they think if it has worked like it has all this time why change it and they continue to play in their small pond. There are no limits to where you can play or what you can achieve.

ASHISH THAKAR ON ….

SCHOOL

“I was at Hillside Bunamwaya I dropped out in second term , senior three…. I had a discussion with my parents I said this is what I am going to do anyway why wait. Thankfully they were supportive and the rest as they say is history…”

THINKING GLOBALLY

“There are no boundaries with what we can do. We want to build Mara into a global brand one of the first out of the continent and why not? What is stopping our businessmen from thinking the same way? Nothing.”

AFRICA’S POTENTIAL

“There is amazing energy, a real fire in the belly a desire to succeed among the youth that has surprised even me wherever I have gone in Africa…. 70% say they want advice  n ot money, which is great. They want mentors, international mentors … they want to play on a larger stage.”

LIVING IN HIS 90^TH FLOOR APPARTMENT IN THE WORLD’S TALLEST  BUILDING, THE BURJ KHALIFA

“If I had a fear of heights I would not be going into space”

RETURNING TO SCHOOL

“I have just done a ten-day executive programme at Harvard, we did it with people from 34 different countries… It helps you stretch your boundaries, the limits of your thinking … and now my friends are jealous I got the famous email address in 10 days what it took them to get in four years.”

HIS TRANSITION TO GLOBAL BUSINESSMAN

“I needed to expand my computer hardware business but the Dubai suppliers would not give me credit because my business was not based here. So I registered a company and started getting credit. I discovered other African businessmen were having the same challenge and unlike me could not  move to Dubai so I offered to give them credit and now I have a presence in 17 countries on the continent.”

DUBAI: A USEFUL CASE STUDY FOR UGANDA

A trip to Dubai and one would be forgiven for thinking he is at the center of the universe.

The airport, through which more than 55 million travellers went through last year, is a hive of activity and a smorgasbord of every conceivable nationality on the planet.

The central business district however is the mirror opposite with barely any foot  traffic and the multiple lane highways more than adequate for the million or so cars of the city.

When you hit the malls – Dubai has at least 70 of them, it becomes clear where all the pedestrian traffic is, there and in the numerous skyscrapers that poke out of the desert sand everywhere you look.

And the small emirate is determined to punch above its weight.

It is home to the tallest man made structure, the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Mall, the largest in the world, the iconic Burj El Arab the fourth tallest hotel in the world and of course the Dubai Airport, which seat on 8,000 acres of land or slightly bigger than Jinja town.

 The country with a population barely above two million has a GDP of more than $80b, is the key logistical hub on the Arabia peninsula, is a major international tourist destination and is fast becoming a financial center.

But things weren’t always like this.

Its location has always served as a key stop over for traders from Asia on their way to Europe and Africa, but its economy was some time buoyed by the pearl trade, which collapsed after the second world war. Oil was discovered in the 1960s lifting Dubai out of its depression, maybe it’s the fickleness of economic fortune that forced the ruling family, the Al Maktoums to approach their new found bonanza differently.

It the height of its oil production Dubai produced 410,000 barrels a day – chicken feed when seen against its neighbours’ numbers production. It now pumps about 70,000 barrels a day and oil is expected to run out within the next two decades.

Knowing this the rulers have gone out of their way to diversify the economy to the point that oil and gas account for less than a tenth of GDP. Dubai’s major revenue earners are construction, trade, tourism and financial services.

Uganda on the cusp of oil production probably stands where Dubai was about 50 years ago – a poor country looking forward to discovering some oil, which would run out in a few years.

Maybe because of their long tradition as a trading family the Al Maktoums knew intuitively what it took to create an enabling environment for business.

They have a world class airport and other transport infrastructure, superlative accommodation facilities, legal framework which draws key tenets from the west and is enforced to the letter and a mouthwatering tax regime for both workers and companies.

In addition they set up some world class companies  -- Emirates Airlines, Dubai Ports nad Dubai World, which provided the initial infrastructure for their audacious repositioning of their economy, run professionally and all turning a profit. The dividends from these companies are enough to finance a lot of public goods.

As a result they have attracted the biggest companies, brightest minds and are swamped to by shopping tourists ensuring that when the oil taps run dry the fallout will be containable.

Uganda is centrally located on the continent, has a trainable population and it has enough tourism potential in its little finger than all of the Arab peninsula combined – my opinion.

Uganda like Dubai is recovering from an economic meltdown that should prompt us to make the pledge “Never again”.

The key difference which may not see us extract value form our oil find in a comparable period is that unlike us the Al Maktoum run as if as a board of directors, while we have a murky democratic process going on.

They can act decisively, unencumbered by electoral calculations or sniping politicians.

To engineer a similar coherence of direction would take much more intelligence and savvy in our case.

Dubai shows though that if we set our mind to it we don’t need the oil resources of an Angola or Nigeria to turn us around – in fact we have more than enough as it is, thank you.

DONOR BILLIONS OUT THE DOOR, GOOD RIDDANCE?

Last week it was revealed that donors were pulling the plug on budget support because we have failed to live up to obligations we made to clamp down harder on corruption and expand the tax base.

Consistent economic growth over the last two decades has led to high revenue collections to the point that now donor money accounts for one in three shillings in the budget down from a near 70% in the 80s and 90s.

However donor funds accounted for a more significant portion of the development budget, so withdrawal will cause more than a little bother.

We can expect a slow down in classroom, health center and road building projects as government scrambles to plug the holes left by the pull out of aid.

The donors are not pulling out of the country all together but want to reserve the right to channel these billions into project support.

Budget support as opposed to project support meant donors would contribute to the budget and government would spend the funds according to a pre-arranged plan, while project support would allow donors to cherry pick initiatives they want to support, without being dictated to by the government priorities.

By shifting to project support the donors think they can shield their money better from the grubby fingers of our corrupt officials while government’s concern is that these inflows uncontrolled by the treasury could upset the delicate balance of macroeconomic stability.

Two weeks ago the New Vision run a cover picture of a beggar seating under an umbrella in animated conversation on her mobile phone. The irony was not lost on many readers.

"There is something insidious about free money. It saps individuals and even nations of their sense of self-reliance, creativity and makes us beholden to the charity giver...

If this aid cut is effected it would be the best thing that has happened to this country in a long time.

There will be some discomfort, not unlike the pain the child who leaves home suffers, as he has to take a dip in the lifestyle he is accustomed to in his father’s house, as he casts off into adulthood and independence.

Whether the pain becomes a more permanent fixture of our lives depends on several things.

Historically these donor collective actions are not as coherent as they look.

"Beyond the stated objective of aiding poor Africans, aid is used as a tool of influence. To cut off aid is to lose influence. Donors use aid to ensure governments see things their way, many times regardless of the existing reality. It is also a huge industry that creates thousands of jobs for local constituents and provides business for contractors at home.

Given all these factors it’s is unlikely that the donors, with their different home context can maintain unity. It is not for individual countries or agencies to continue negotiating with offending governments.

Also with the emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa) whose developmental demands are often more pressing that the richer west, there are now alternative sources of aid.

But assuming the donors will not break ranks with each other and the BRICS will not come in to write blank cheques to the treasury, then government will have to make some hard but long overdue decisions.

To keep our prodigious growth figures rolling we going to have to bridge the gaps in the developmental budget by, cutting down on public administration, plugging the leaks due to corruption, roping in more tax payers and considering borrowing from the Ugandan public for more than just keeping inflation at bay.

In short our paper pushers will have to exercise more thought than it takes to cut and paste aid contracts and display dexterity with a fork and knife...

The easier scenario for a bureaucrat,  is to eat humble pie and grovel before the donors and have them rescind their position.

For the long term good of the country we need to bite the bullet and start thinking of a life without recourse to western aid.

It will have implications in every sphere of our lives.

As a bare minimum the government will be more responsive to the productive sector of the economy and not pander to rent seekers and hecklers that are our political elite.

They will see more value in a smaller cabinet, smaller parliament, fewer districts and shift this money to building  roads, railways and dams, which unlike the top heavy public administration, will lower the cost and improve the ease of doing business in this country.

A country is only as viable as its private sector we learnt with the collapse of the iron curtain.

"What aid does is it weakens the private sector by providing little incentive for the government to engage meaningfully to facilitate business growth, after all any revenue shortfalls can bridged by a quick trip to Washington (forget video conferencing there is no per diem in that)...

I am being naïve of course. The aid taps will be unstopped by this time next year and it will be business as usual.

L. VICTORIA AN ANALOGY FOR OUR POOR HEALTH

Since the beginning of the month the Vision Group’s various platforms have been writing articles on the train crash in progress that is Lake Victoria.

We are polluting, depleting and generally treating the lake so badly that at the current rate of doing things, there is a real danger of the lake drying up in our life time.

For anybody who has taken a cruise on the lake and had a flitting sense of its vastness it is hard to get your head around the possibility of its extinction.

But it has happened before and not very far from us. A series of satellite images comparing the lake which is shared by Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon is about a tenth the size now than it was in 1973. A combination of averse weather and wanton use of its waters for irrigation has led to that sad situation.

The lake is fast becoming a cess pool with National Water & Sewerage Corporation being forced to shell out sh700b to not only reach further into the lake to collect water but also to build another water treatment plant.

Fish stock has dwindled to almost nothing threatening lake side communities and at the heart of a simmering dispute between Kenya and Uganda.

But also last week a series of reports were released which showed the general health of our population is not where it is supposed to be.

The Uganda Demographic Health Survey showed that one in three children or five million children are suffering from chronic malnutrition. Health officials also fear that the hypertension is likely to become the leading cause of death in the country in less than a decade.

Sadly this is all happening not through any events out of our control. The dwindling lake and the failures of our health may one day – hopefully not, be used to illustrate the old say,  a stitch in time saves nine.

Around the lake, shared by Uganda, Kenya and  Tanzania we are  deforesting the catchment areas and draining the wetlands, which act as natural filters for water streaming into the lake.

Spiritual leader the Dalai Lama when asked what surprised him about human beings said, “He sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.”

A hangover from economic trying times is our wish to look up to fatter people, their excess weight suggested better feeding and therefore greater affluence.

By the time the NRA rolled into town in 1986 the economy of Uganda had retreated to a subsistence economy. Manufacturing and processing was at an all-time low. So not only was food in shorter supply it was eaten right off the stalk with no processing in between.

As unimaginable as it sounds, as recently as the early nineties there were no fast food outlets in the Kampala and you could not eat in the city on a Sunday.

As we became more affluent and lived a little longer previously rarely heard about ailments like hypertension, diabetes, gout and a host of others reared their ugly heads. And for a brief and bizarre moment these conditions were considered status symbols.

But our eating habits aside we have taken on a more sedentary lifestyle, with its most clear manifestation is – as one friend likes to joke, that we now mostly travel while seating.

There was a time not long ago when it was not unusual to walk from Wandegeya to town.

The urgent need for economic growth is forcing us to look the other way as things go wrong in our environment and health, at the back of our heads we think we shall redress the damage when we are wealthier.

It starts with knowledge.

Having environmental and health studies as examinable subjects much earlier in the school curriculum would be useful in creating the critical mass of people to regulate the issues. Keeping thee issues at the center of our daily discussions should be encouraged.

Even the so-called poverty related illnesses like malnutrition can mitigated against with better  knowledge of basic nutrition.

We don’t have to wait for oil to suffer the resource curse, the abuse of our abundant environment – Uganda has almost half of all the arable land in the region and is 20% covered by water, is causing us to take our abundance for granted. We have been seduced into believing these are infinite and renewable resources.

We treat our health the same way.

Is it a chicken and egg situation? Do we treat our environment badly because we treat ourselves badly or is it the other way around.

Regardless we need to get stitching or we will one day bne looking back and wondering where did it all go wrong.