<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



At least two people were killed and several others were injured in two explosions in the center of Kampala on Tuesday, Reuters reported citing local television coverage, an incident that comes at a time when the Ugandan military is engaged in a conflict with al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants.



<h2 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<a href="https://www.ntv.co.ug/ug/news/national/2-explosions-rock-kampala-city-3620546" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According to</a>&nbsp;NTV Uganda, the two explosions took place near Uganda’s Parliamentary main gate and near Kampala’s Central Police Station offices.



The cause of the blasts remain unclear, but at least two people have been confirmed dead.



<a href="https://www.ntv.co.ug/ug/news/national/mulago-receives-27-injured-by-city-explosions-3620778" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According to</a>&nbsp;news outlets, a local hospital has received 27 injured people, seven of whom are in a critical condition.



A Ugandan military spokesperson&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/explosion-uganda-capital-kills-least-two-local-tv-2021-11-16/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;Reuters that there had been “multiple” blasts and “multiple” casualties but did not offer any additional details.



The Ugandan Red Cross Society said it has managed to resuscitate at least 17 people injured in the blast and noted that its emergency teams were working closely with local police officials.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Our emergency rescue teams working with <a href="https://twitter.com/PoliceUg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PoliceUg</a> emergency services to support those injured in the Kampala bomb <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/explosions?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#explosions</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/IFRCAfrica?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IFRCAfrica</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ifrc?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ifrc</a> In set is <a href="https://twitter.com/OsbertSserugo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OsbertSserugo</a>, Red Cross Kampala Central branch Manager,folding his sleeves to offer a life saving hand. 📸 <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyMonitor?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DailyMonitor</a> <a href="https://t.co/u3FRrNomFm">pic.twitter.com/u3FRrNomFm</a>&mdash; Uganda Red Cross Soc (@UgandaRedCross) <a href="https://twitter.com/UgandaRedCross/status/1460528098378760195?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



While no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack the Al Qaeda-linked insurgent group Al-Shabaab and Islamic State-backed Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), have carried out similar attacks in Uganda in the past. The Ugandan military is currently fighting Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia as part of an U.N.-backed African Union peacekeeping force.



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/"></a>By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

UGANDA-EXPLOSION

At Least Two Killed In Dual Blasts In Uganda’s Capital, Reports Say

TOPLINE: A Ugandan athlete training in Japan in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics went missing on Friday, triggering a search by local officials and police, in an incident that has raised doubt about the security measures put in place by the games’ organizers to keep the spread of Covid-19 in check.



<h3 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



Julius Ssekitoleko, a 20-year-old Ugandan weightlifter, was not found in his designated accommodation when a local official attempted to find him to receive his sample for Covid-19 testing,&nbsp;Kyodo News&nbsp;<a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/07/37a6d0d3d253-urgent-ugandan-olympic-athlete-training-in-japan-goes-missing.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.



Ssekitoleko was staying in the city of Izumisano in western Japan along with other members of the Ugandan Olympic team.



The missing athlete was last spotted by his teammates at around 12:30 am on Friday, city officials said.



<h3 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h3>



The Ugandan Olympics delegation reached Japan last month and they were among the first group of visiting athletes to reach the country to prepare for the summer games. After their arrival, two members of the delegation&nbsp;<a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/06/23/national/uganda-olympian-covid/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tested positive</a>&nbsp;for Covid-19, which prevented the team from beginning their training activities. The team finally started training in Izumisano last week after undergoing a strict quarantine.



<h3 id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h3>



Visiting athletes participating in the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics are expected to follow a stringent set of pandemic-related rules which includes regular testing and having their movement restricted. As part of the rules&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/archive/2021/06/?sh=47defdb81f67">unveiled last month</a>, all participating athletes and officials will be screened for the virus daily and are required to provide saliva samples at set times. Athletes, who can only stay in officially approved accommodations, will have their movements restricted and will be subject to GPS tracking by officials. The rulebook warns that non-compliance will result in large fines, permanent bans from the Olympics and even expulsion from Japan, depending on the severity of the breach.



<h3 id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h3>



<a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/07/37a6d0d3d253-urgent-ugandan-olympic-athlete-training-in-japan-goes-missing.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ugandan Olympic athlete training in Japan goes missing</a> (Kyodo News)



By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

Weightlifting – Commonwealth Games Day 1

Ugandan Olympic Athlete Goes Missing In Japan In Possible Breach Of Covid-19 Rules

Uganda expects sugar output to rise 11% this year as three
mills under construction in the country’s northern and eastern regions come
online, officials say.



“Production is currently at 450,000 metric tons. When three
new factories that are under construction and development start producing, we
will go up to a half a million metric tons,” Uganda’s Trade and Industry
Minister Amelia Kyambadde says in an interview with FORBES AFRICA.



The East African country is only able to consume 360,000 tons per year, leaving a surplus for export in a region that’s grappling with deficits. Uganda exports sugar to the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania.



Underpinning the country’s sugar sector are millers,
including Kakira Sugar Works, the largest producer. Sugar Corporation of Uganda
Limited – Lugazi and Kinyara Sugar Works are the other largest players.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2019/04/02/the-industrialists-who-have-tasted-sucrose-and-success/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The Industrialists Who Have Tasted Sucrose And Success (opens in a new tab)">The Industrialists Who Have Tasted Sucrose And Success</a>



While this growth in output is imperative, the government is
keen to see diversification in production to include industrial sugar as the
country seeks to save its foreign exchange, Kyambadde says.&nbsp; 



“I see a bright future,” she adds, “but producers also need
to diversify and produce the finer sugar. All of them are producing the bigger
crystals but finer sugar for production is what we would like them to start
producing.



“At the moment, we are importing that finer sugar. 



“So that has been our concern with them, that why don’t you
diversify and start producing the sugar that’s ready for production,” she says.



But these efforts have largely been stalled by Uganda’s high
power tariffs, according to Kyambadde. 



“They (millers) say from this level, the ordinary sugar,
they have to have another line that would make it finer. That means the
consumption of power definitely is higher,” she says. 



“So that is one of the challenges; that the costs of
production are so high,” she said, adding that new power plants will reduce
costs to an ideal five US cents/KW.



Uganda is also looking to establish new laws to govern the
sugar sector but disagreements over exclusivity clauses relating to purchase of
cane from farmers abound. 



In March, President Yoweri Museveni declined to assent to
the Sugar Act of 2016 that was passed by Parliament in November last year. His
spokesman, Don Wanyama, says the president is concerned about the proximity of
millers.



“It’s going to antagonize the old sugar players,” Wanyama says. “It’s (the act) not going to be assented to,” he says.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/agriculture/2019/01/24/ugandan-firm-uses-blockchain-to-trace-coffee-from-farms-to-stores/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Ugandan Firm Uses Blockchain To Trace Coffee From Farms To Stores (opens in a new tab)">Ugandan Firm Uses Blockchain To Trace Coffee From Farms To Stores</a>



“We hope this issue will be corrected now that the bill is
being sent back to parliament,” says Jim Kabeho, the Chairman of Uganda Sugar
Manufacturers Association, the largest industry lobby. 



“Farming constitutes 60 percent of our costs; yet someone
without a single tractor and using cheap old machinery just wants to come and
buy from your farmers,” he said in a phone interview.



Kabeho, also a director at Kakira and a board member at
regional business lobby, the East Africa Business Council, warns that Uganda
has lessons to learn from Kenya which allowed “market distortions” in the name
of allowing competition only to end up with less production and having to rely
on imports.



Yet for Ibrahim Baliitamuto, a cane grower in the eastern
district of Mayuge, all that matters is price stability.



&nbsp;“It’s very easy to
make a fortune from sugarcane if the prices offered by factories are not
changed very often,” Baliitamuto says. 



“You can’t tell me about growing maize (corn) when I have a
choice of sugarcane.”



Kyambadde says in returning the law to parliament, the
president was being mindful of the big players.



“He thinks that the output of the small players is negligible, but we are still discussing that,” she says.



-Joseph Burite

madhvani3

Uganda Sees 11% Growth In Sugar Output This Year

madhvani6

The Madhvanis: The Industrialists Who Have Tasted Sucrose And Success

An Ugandan company has started using blockchain, the technology behind virtual currency Bitcoin, to certify shipments of coffee to try to meet growing demand from consumers for more information about where products have come from. 



Carico Café Connoisseur said the move could help to boost farmers’ incomes, as consumers are usually prepared to pay more for goods that can been traced back to their origins.



Blockchain works by providing a shared record of data held by a network of individual computers rather than a single party. Its supporters say this makes it hard to tamper with, and so a secure way to track goods along the supply chain



Carico Café Connoisseur CEO Mwambu Wanendeya told Reuters a blockchain-certified shipment of one of its coffee products, Bugisu Blue, arrived in South Africa last month. He declined to give the size of the shipment, but said it was several tonnes.



Uganda is Africa’s largest coffee exporter followed by Ethiopia, according to the International Coffee Organisation, and has some of the world’s highest quality beans. It predominantly cultivates the robusta variety, but also has extensive fields of arabica trees.



Limited domestic processing capacity means the country exports nearly all of its beans in raw form.



The blockchain certification means consumers can trace the coffee’s journey by using their smartphones to scan the product’s QR codes or via the certification site provenance.org.



Every step of the beans’ journey &#8211; from when farmers drop them off at collection centers to warehousing, inspection by regulators and shipping &#8211; is recorded.



“The idea is to give the consumer an appreciation of what happens on the journey and also to ensure that there’s more linkages with the farmer,” Wanendeya said.



“Traceability is important because people are increasingly concerned that &#8230; farmers get rewarded for their work.”



The process will provide consumers with information such as the type of coffee bean, the year it was harvested, and where it was grown.



Founded in 2016, Carico Café is working with two farmer cooperatives with hundreds of members. Wanendeya predicted the innovation could boost farmers’ incomes by 10 percent.



“Consumers are willing to pay more if they can know where exactly the coffee is coming from,” he said.



Just a phone scan away &#8211; website reveals ethically sourced food



Uganda is keen to increase coffee exports from the current level of around 4 million 60-kilogramme bags per year.



However, a seedlings distribution program it hoped would boost production has yielded modest results, in part because of a decline in interest in coffee among farmers due to often low and unstable prices. -Reuters 



&#8211; Elias Biryabarema

gettyimages-103300178-594×594

Ugandan Firm Uses Blockchain To Trace Coffee From Farms To Stores

With Africa having a big share of the global malaria burden, technologists are developing new, cost-effective ways to detect the disease – minus the needle. 

A needle, blood drawn and waiting time are the three aspects of a traditional malaria test.
In Kampala, Uganda, 24-year-old Brian Gitta has created a device that eliminates all of the above, in a first for malaria testing.
Matibabu, meaning ‘treatment’ in Swahili, tests malaria without drawing blood and can deliver results instantly.
The device, clipped on to a patient&#8217;s finger, beams a red light, and the results are available within a minute on a mobile phone linked to the device.
Growing up, Gitta had a passion for computers and went on to pursue a degree in computer science at the University of Makerere in Kampala.
Little did he know his eagerness and passion for tech would lead him to the medical field.
“I’m not one who grew up saying I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer. I mean I’m not a doctor but I’m glad I can make a change in the medical realm from there,” Gitta tells FORBES AFRICA.
Gitta, who is often in and out of hospitals, now runs Matibabu, a company that takes its name from the device he created. He runs it with a team of six full-time staff. Although he is the CEO and founder of Matibabu, he prefers to be called a team leader.
It all started six years ago. In his first year at university, Gitta got together with his fellow students to change the way malaria was diagnosed. The prevalence of malaria continues to be high in Africa, rated as a top killer.
“I remember the first year when we started it, a lot of people were excited about what we were doing,” Gitta says.
Their project got them accolades such as the UN Women&#8217;s Empowerment Award in 2013.
“I think what we are doing has a lot of potential and we can definitely do something about this.”
The team decided to turn the project into a company with a social objective. But nothing prepared them for what was to come.
<div id="attachment_36983" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36983" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-36983 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brian-Gitta_18a-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brian-Gitta_18a-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brian-Gitta_18a-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brian-Gitta_18a-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brian-Gitta_18a-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brian-Gitta_18a.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Brian Gitta. Picture Provided: James Oatway</div>
<blockquote>“As a bunch of people that didn’t know how to run a company, neither did we know how to do anything in terms of management; we actually had to learn on site, so we made a lot of mistakes in the beginning,” says Gitta.</blockquote>
But the more word got out about the company, the more support Gitta and his team received.
They got to learn more about strategic solutions, and managing development processes and the expectations of partners.
The prestigious 2018 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation they won in Kenya in June, have now helped them map the product for the world.
Gitta won prize money of $33,000. He will also receive support, funding, mentoring and business training from the Royal Academy of Engineering in the United Kingdom.
In 2016, he was on an MTV Base panel discussion with billionaire Bill Gates to share his views on the future of technology, innovation and development in Africa, with a group of African youth.
Gitta aims to create a low-cost malaria-testing device for medical institutions. Currently, the price is set at $100, but he hopes to lower the cost so it’s more accessible.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/11/24/birth-control-mosquitoes-malaria-cure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Birth Control For Mosquitoes – Is This The Malaria Cure?</a>
Gitta, himself once a victim to malaria, was frustrated with the healthcare system in Uganda. Blood tests had failed to diagnose his condition. He says this is one of the common problems malaria patients face. Another is people would rather self-diagnose than seek medical help.
“There’s a lot of self-medication because people tend to treat every fever as malaria and that creates additional strain&#8230;,&#8221; says Gitta.
But he believes with Matibabu, these issues may be eliminated.
Far from Kampala, in the South African capital of Pretoria, Professor Leo Braack at the University of Pretoria has been studying malaria for over five years.
“The new device developed by Gitta and his colleagues suggests multiple potential benefits not just for patients, [but] especially small children intimidated by the current need for a drop of blood,&#8221; says Braack.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), children under the age of five are at a high risk of malaria because they are more susceptible to infection, illness and death.
Braack believes this device could be the first of its kind in the world. However, that may provide a challenge for Matibabu to enter the market.
<div id="attachment_36984" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36984" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36984" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC_4660-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC_4660-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC_4660-600x398.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC_4660-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC_4660-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC_4660.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Leo Braack. Photo Provided.</div>
&#8220;The device still has a way to go before it will be widely accepted within the medical and scientific communities, and ultimately it will depend on cost-effectiveness, and particularly how accurate and sensitive the diagnosis is,&#8221; he says.
“If the device has a margin of error, it is better that it has false-positives than false-negatives. It is better to treat a false-positive person than to ignore a false-negative person who may go on to get seriously ill.
“The ideal is to get the device to reach as close to 100% accuracy and sensitivity, [it’s] very difficult to reach.”
Despite the immense strides taken in eradicating malaria, one of the biggest challenges is the mosquito’s resistance to insecticides and drugs.
Technology has introduced short-term solutions to combat outdoor mosquitoes.
<div id="attachment_36985" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36985" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36985" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes-768x1155.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/option1-highRes.jpg 1362w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Vinet Coetzee. Photo provided</div>
Like Gitta, Dr Vinet Coetzee, a lecturer from the University of Pretoria, has been on the quest to identify affordable, non-invasive ways to detect malaria. Her method was tested in Nigeria on children.
“The device uses sensitive skin color measurements in the palm of the hand coupled with Artificial Intelligence to accurately detect whether a person has malaria or not,” says Coetzee.
According to Coetzee, sensitivity is the ability of the method to correctly identify people who have the disease. In this case, WHO recommends a sensitivity of 95%.
The University of Pretoria has filed a provisional patent for this method and Coetzee and her team are currently working on improving the device and its overall accuracy.
She was selected as a Next Einstein Forum fellow and member of the World Economic Forum Young Scientist Community for her work on the bloodless malaria detection device.
Dr Taneshka Kruger, who has been studying malaria since 2012, also believes technology can aid in the fight against malaria. Her focus in malaria research is malaria education and awareness, and public health, looking into new and modern ways to inform communities in both malaria-endemic and non-malaria areas through the use of social media and mobile apps.
<div id="attachment_36987" style="width: 217px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36987" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36987" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443-207x300.jpg" alt="" width="207" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443-207x300.jpg 207w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443-300x436.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443-600x871.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443-768x1116.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443-705x1024.jpg 705w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180613-MR2_9443.jpg 1410w" sizes="(max-width: 207px) 100vw, 207px" />Taneshka Kruger. Photo provided</div>
<blockquote>“In order for malaria elimination to be achieved in sub-Saharan Africa and globally, new and innovative methods and strategies need to be developed that focus on all aspects of the disease,” she tells us.</blockquote>
“The institute [University of Pretoria], in collaboration with Travel with Flair, also developed the ‘Malaria Buddy’ app to inform mainly tourists about malaria. The app is continuously expanding with the aim to become a one-stop malaria information app,” she adds.
WHO is tracking the E2020 initiative in 21 countries identified as having the potential to eliminate the disease by the year 2020. Six of them are African – Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Comoros, South Africa and Swaziland.
The African region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden.
In 2016, the region was home to 90% of malaria cases and 91% of malaria deaths. Therefore, a lot more effort and focus to eradicate malaria is necessary.
Despite only being in the field for a few years, Gitta is positive that with these technological enhancements, the fight against malaria will surely end.
&#8220;I think the strides toward elimination are happening although it will take a bit of time. But we just want to be a part of the journey as a whole,” says Gitta.
“I think the opportunity has been humungous and I don’t look at age as a definition of how to be an entrepreneur and that’s what makes this generation a big difference,” he says. 
Hopefully, the new generation of tech tools they develop will also offer a big difference to malaria cure.
<blockquote>&nbsp;</blockquote>

Brian-Gitta_36x

The Bloodless Battle Against The Malaria

Prudence Ukkonika’s wine shop is by a dusty petrol station in Wandegeya in Kampala.
A giant wine bottle is positioned outside her shop, and inside is a profusion of pink – pink wine bottles and cases from floor to ceiling, and finally Ukkonika herself, who climbs down the stairs from her upstairs office, in a pink dress.
She is Uganda’s most famous female wine entrepreneur. The 61-year-old grandmother of 10 is the owner of K-Roma, a company that manufactures, packages and distributes Bella Wine and a range of natural fruit concentrates, ready-to-drink juices and teas.
As a teenager, Ukkonika would watch her father trade local brew in Kigezi, a district in southwest Uganda. That stoked her interest, and with several public administration and business administration degrees under her belt later on in life, she started the wine business.
Her unique selling proposition for Bella, which derives its name from the acronym ‘Belief Leads to Long-lasting Achievement’, is that her wines and juices are sourced from organic and natural fruits, free from chemicals and other additives.
Besides the sweet reds, her best-sellers, she says, are hibiscus wine and a range of hibiscus teas, especially conducive for those with diabetes and high blood pressure.
“I refuse blood pressure tablets. I take hibiscus tea and wine and I am okay,” she says.
The real inspiration for the wine business was her late son Godwin. He was in his 20s when he saw a future in wine.
“He saw people enjoying local wine more, so he took an interest in it, and like me, he was an entrepreneur, selling wine after school,” says Ukkonika.
When tragedy struck and Godwin passed away, she says she wanted to run away from Uganda, but stayed.
“He was so close to me, and he inspired me to continue the business,” she says.
By 2013, she took courses in wine-making and started marketing the wines in a big way.
For the last 37 years, Ukkonika has also worked at the Ministry of Finance. So she has had a fully-fledged career.
“They supported me the most, as I was running the wine business and also selling to staff.”
She was producing the wines in her garage at home. With business growing, she then rented a place in Muyenga, using 200-liter drums to store the wines.
Today, she sells the wines – an average of 200 bottles a day – to retail supermarkets across Uganda, and they are also popular across the borders in Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya.
Her company makes seven different types of wines, among them those made of passion fruit, tree tomato, and a combination of pineapple and hibiscus that she calls ‘special wine’.
The variously-colored labels on her bottles are from China.
“There are many people trying to copy our products and put on fake labels, so I had to go to China to get special shiny labels,” says Ukkonika.
These labels can also be customized. In her shop, an entire rack is devoted to wines personalized for prenuptial events, weddings and graduation ceremonies. These include images of happy couples on their wedding day plastered onto the bottles.
Ukkonika regularly attends wine expos around the world, and has plans to expand her business as she already has a factory.
Pointing to the wall adorned with the numerous certificates and awards she has won over the years, Ukkonika says: “I started with nothing; and reached where I did.”
She attained all her business degrees after age 31 and “giving birth to six children in seven years”.
Today, her weeks are busy but the weekends are filled with family and lots of Bella Wine.
“Everybody else’s wine is from grapes, but I make it from all fruits. I never look at competition but work on how to make my wine better,” says Ukkonika, who, like the wine she sells, seems to keep getting better with age.

Something To Wine About

Uganda’s First Lady: ‘Write Your Own Story’

There is something about first impressions.
When you meet Diana Kamuntu, two things instantly strike you about her: that she is tall – very tall – and that she would probably pass off as more movie star than manager.
Half an hour into meeting with the 37-year-old Ugandan entrepreneur and mother of three running a tour company in Kampala, facts emerge that she has been a business woman for the last decade, and that is as an elephant conservationist – who would have thought?
The youngest daughter of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni plays it down.
“In the beginning, I was more on the tourism side but in the last few years, that’s when I went more into conservation, especially of the African elephant,” she says.
“I don’t think we as Ugandans know that much about it and knowing that it’s an issue that affects the whole continent.”
Her company, Age Safaris, is in the building we are in now, in the Luzira suburb of Kampala. By the reception to her offices is a giant carpet with the image of the President, hung on the wall.
How does she blend business with conservation, we ask.
“What I have learned over the years is that business is about people, it’s about the networking. The people you meet, the people you work with, is what makes a business, they become an extended family. For tourism in particular, I think it’s a great industry because it goes right down to the people. It trickles down to the communities, and changes whole communities,” says Kamuntu.
This she admits to learning from her parents.
“I guess for me the greatest thing I learned from my parents is their love for people. It’s what drives them, what keeps them going for work and being in touch with ordinary people. Many times, I have been with my father upcountry and he’ll stop the car to talk to people and ask them how their day is and how their families are. That will always remain with me. The greatest lesson in life is people.”
Her company works with an organization called Restoration Gateway that supports children and the vulnerable in northern Uganda.
But talk still veers to the African tusker.
“Here in Uganda, our African elephant population is steadily growing, it’s about 5,000 now. That’s not enough but it came from about 2,000 in the 1980s – it’s small but at least it’s not declining… During the war, many of the elephants migrated to the Congo but now they are slowly coming back and we are repopulating but in different parts of Africa, it’s mostly poaching, so the efforts are to try and stop that poaching and stop the market for ivory.”
The mountain gorilla, found in these parts, is even more endangered.
“Efforts mostly are about bringing awareness to everyone who visits that there are only about 750 to 800 mountain gorillas left in the world and more than half of them are in Uganda.”
<div id="attachment_34780" style="width: 311px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34780" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34780" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Diana-Kamuntu-1-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="301" height="452" />Diana Kamuntu (Photo by Lovington Kambugu/Blush Media)</div>
Kamuntu’s travels take her far. Her husband Geoffrey is into the logistics business, and with children aged 12, 10 and eight, she says it’s hard work but certainly not as demanding as the early years when she had to “travel for exhibitions and business development”.
“The children are your priority and at the same time, you want to contribute. It’s a big challenge especially for women. Starting a business is not easy, as investment capital is hard to come by even though there are many microfinance projects targeting women. I think those are the biggest challenges that I’ve seen,” she says.
Kamuntu recounts her own career trajectory. She studied African History at the University of Minnesota in the United States.
“My father always made fun of me saying, ‘you went all the way to the States to study that’,” she laughs.
“Back in Uganda, for a bit I was [cattle] ranching with my father. Everyone knows he loves his cows – it’s our culture, the backbone of who we are. Then I started to venture into business. I would travel to many tourism destinations and see the number of tourists and think ‘you know if Uganda was discovered as a tourist destination, it would sell’. The more I went into it, the more I discovered what a unique country it is.”
Until the age of six, Kamuntu was in exile with the family. Her earliest memories are of winters in Sweden.
“And we spoke fluent Swedish,” she smiles.
“I guess as kids we didn’t know the struggles my mother was going through trying to raise four kids on her own. For us, it was a happy time really, but I guess there was always someone missing – my father, but his presence was always looming. I remember when my sisters and brother would want me to do something, they would say ‘daddy is coming today’, and then I would get up because I never really met him until I was six years old when we came back to Uganda and were reunited… That’s when I really got to know him.
“Both my parents are amazing. I think my father tried to make up for that time lost, so he would spoil us, especially the girls. He was always encouraging us to follow our dreams and dream big. Whatever he felt or you felt as a person was your calling, he would support you.”
Like both her parents, would she ever enter politics?
Kamuntu shakes her head. “I don’t aspire to be in politics… It’s a lot of sacrifice.”
It’s clear her heart is in many other things.
“Ugandans are very creative as a people so that’s our untapped potential,” she says.
It’s only when we meet her sister Natasha Karugire the following day and she mentions that she has cast Kamuntu as the leading lady of the movie, 27 Guns, she is currently filming that we know.
What was it again about first impressions?

‘The Greatest Lesson In Life Is People’

We are in one of the breakaway rooms of the conference center at the five-star Kampala Serena Hotel in Uganda, but the conversation is about Luweero, located two hours by road from Kampala.
Natasha Karugire, the eldest daughter of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, speaks breathlessly, her thoughts coming thick and fast, as she moves from one staccato sentence to another.
She is talking animatedly about the feature film, 27 Guns, she is currently making on Uganda’s ‘Bush War’, and 1981, when the young Museveni went into hiding as part of the National Resistance Army (NRA).
“He and 42 other men had only 27 guns between them, but what they had was faith and hope and fire,” says the 41-year-old mother of four, who started out as a fashion designer and has now scripted the film and is directing it. It is expected to premiere in February. When we meet her in September, she has been filming for two weeks, with an all-Ugandan crew and cast.
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Karugire’s creative energy is palpable as she speaks passionately about the project that has seen her literally live in the bush in Luweero, re-enacting the guerrilla war in which her father played a lead role. The NRA was based in different parts of Luweero for five years.
“It’s time we tell our own stories, and not wait for someone to come and tell it in a different voice, from a skewed perspective,” she says of the reason she started her film production company Isaiah 60 in March 2017.
“We have epic tales in Africa, and for us starting with Uganda, we have just such big stories… But you know the saddest thing for me is that our own citizens, a lot of the time, are unaware.”
She laments the tendency among the young to endorse the Western narrative.
“Whenever a story is being told by Hollywood about Africa, it’s so generic, there is a way that it’s told, the song that is played… And in your heart, you are feeling this is just not us, we are not only about this, there is so much more to the people of Africa… I think this film is our way of saying, ‘this is how we say it’.”
<div id="attachment_34773" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34773" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-34773" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/27-Guns-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />A scene from Natasha Karugire&#8217;s film, 27 Guns (Photo supplied)</div>
Growing up, Karugire says she was always artistic. “I draw, I sketch, take pictures and write poetry.”
At university, she studied fashion, design and marketing. She was barely 22, when she started her own business in Uganda’s non-existent fashion industry. She struggled.
“I started out in Uganda, when fashion was not understood,” she says simply. She got married at 24, and started a family. Her eldest child is now 16 and youngest five.
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Her husband Edwin, a lawyer, supported her “strange artistic journeys”.
But throughout her stint in the fashion business, Karugire kept asking herself if she was doing something she was passionate about and that kept her up at night.
“Almost the day I turned 40, something just happened,” says Karugire of her epiphany, that she should make a film about the struggle. Up until then, she had been putting together video clips, culled from old footage, for friends and family who loved them.
“I started reading my father’s books and I prayed, because we are Christians, my first point of call always is to ask God, that’s when I started writing a script for the first time,” she says.
“I realized I could not go to bed, I could not talk about anything else , and that’s when it hit me that this is my passion.”
Soon, Karugire met a producer in England, but “she was patronizing about the story”, saying it would probably be good for Ugandans and the region but not the international market.
Determined, she pressed on and started filming.
“It has such been a walk, quite a journey on so many levels , but right now, our faith is reaffirmed,” she says.
Funding for the film, she says, has come from people who believe in the story.
“But we are still looking for investors,” she tells us at the interview.
In the film, Karugire’s youngest sister, Diana Kamuntu, plays the role of the First Lady.
Talent, it seems, runs in the family.

‘It’s Time We Tell Our Own Stories’

It’s not every day one gets to meet a First Daughter, in the living room of the official residence of an African President.
At the Nakasero State House in Uganda, Patience Rwabwogo is a picture of calm, like the verdant surroundings around her.
An entrepreneur since the age of 23, she operates out of her offices in Luzira, a suburb in Kampala.
“I never thought I would go into business,” begins Rwabwogo.
“When I went to school in the US, I studied Political Science and Development Studies. When I came home, my parents advised and encouraged me to start a business to learn to be independent, and know the ins and outs of the business world.”
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The only boss she had was herself.
“I have always been self-employed and that’s the only world I know. You never go home and say the boss is going to deal with the problem; you are the one who takes all the responsibility.”
She started in commodity trade, buying food produce, selling it and also exporting and selling to local markets. Was being a First Daughter ever an advantage in business?
“It was a disadvantage at times because people don’t really take you seriously, they think you are sort of privileged, that you don’t really need to do this and that was the farthest thing from the truth,” says the mother of four.
“We’ve always learned from when we were young that you make your own way in life and should be valued on your merit.”
Rwabwogo works with her husband Odrek and is primarily into agriculture.
“We have a farm and process dairy products, we sell to the local market in Uganda, and are looking at exporting to the regions.”
Rwabwogo is close to her siblings and says her memories of life in exile, during Uganda’s long drawn-out civil war, are “scant”.
“When you are a child, you don’t look at the big questions in life. We were content and happy.”
Today, her message to young Africans is to stay connected to agriculture, and their land.
“What is important is the connection with the land. Agriculture is easy for Africans to relate to, it’s so very close to our culture… Our identity as Africans is so connected to the land, so our land has to produce for us, be it livestock or crops. It has to be commercially viable, that is the source of our wealth.”
In addition to her business, Rwabwogo also spends “a huge amount of time” serving as a pastor in a church in Kampala.
“That was my own journey,” she says, and you know it is a calling she truly enjoys.

Connected To Her Land

In March, the MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE) report was released and it contained good news. Uganda has the highest percentage (34.8%) of women business owners in the world.
The East African country led in various key components of the survey; the highest percentage (90.5%) of female entrepreneurs in the world borrowing and saving money to start a business, highest (93.9%) labor force participation rate and a 100% women entrepreneurial activity rate, meaning women are as likely as men to start a business. Notably, cultural perceptions of female entrepreneurs in Uganda were surprisingly higher (68.8%) than the average (41.3%). Second in the index was another African country – Botswana at 34.6%. Sadly, out of the six African countries included in the 54-country survey, four were in the bottom half – South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria.
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The survey reveals certain important points. First, women are good for business. Second, markets with supportive entrepreneurial conditions, such as strong SME support, high quality of governance and ease of doing business, tend to drive the progress of women business ownership. Lastly, women advancement in business is not tied to wealth and the level of development in the economy. In other words, the entrepreneurial drive of African women is exceptional. That said, going forward, it’s critical for the rest of the continent to emulate their trailblazing neighbors.
To achieve this, a key question needs to be answered: why should the African woman entrepreneur matter? Findings from the survey show that women entrepreneurs are the backbone of economic growth and are powerful engines of development and financial inclusion. Success for the African woman entrepreneur is success for the economy. Additionally, according to the MIWE survey, like most of their counterparts in developing countries, African female entrepreneurs are driven by resilience, determination and the desire to provide for their families. Investing in women benefits an entire community. Women are also opportunity-seekers and risk-takers – attributes that are vital in inspiring them to become entrepreneurs.
Harnessing these qualities will require the active participation of all stakeholders within the entrepreneurial ecosystem; financial institutions, government and private equity. In fact, women-led private equity funds can help catalyse this change by fronting this movement. With many of them now taking leading roles in developing private equity in Africa, their rise should in turn be positive for female entrepreneurs. Private Equity Women Investor Network (PEWIN), a global organization promoting senior women in private equity, estimates that there are more than 150 women in senior roles investing or allocating capital across Africa. This is crucial considering the MIWE survey mentioned lack of venture capital as a constraint on the African woman entrepreneur.
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Governments have a central role to play. Enacting business-friendly regulations, removing institutional inefficiencies and ensuring ease of doing business will go a long way in helping the woman entrepreneur realize her potential.
Family and society are also instrumental, especially when it comes to easing gender-related challenges that often hinder women from prospering in business, such as taking care of children. Further inroads can be made in other ways, including training and mentoring programs, honoring successful female business owners and encouraging women networking events.
A brighter future awaits the African woman entrepreneur. Although much of the African women’s full potential and value as entrepreneurs and business owners remains unleashed, gradually implementing a supportive environment will help pave way for more women in the market place.
Hopefully in the future, Africa can realize this and join Uganda as a leading light of the world. &#8211; Written by Rufus Mwanyasi

The Rise Of The African Woman

Off Kampala’s chaotic arterial streets, we are on a dirt road with speed bumps that are large mounds of red earth. The red leads to a yellow building up a slope with awkward barbed wire fencing on its compound walls.
We are at Kiira Motors Corporation’s offices in Ntinda, in northeastern Kampala, home to what the company calls ‘Africa’s first electric car’ and ‘Africa’s first solar-powered bus’.
Outside the main building, a large white bus is parked under a makeshift shed. A scaled-down model of the same is placed under the stairway leading up to the offices. In the distance, a profusion of plantain trees; and a searing sun at 9:30AM.
The bumpy roads to Kiira are in a way akin to the journey ahead for this automobile start-up, ever since the green transportation initiative it kick-started in a little corner of Uganda.
“It’s an uphill task but we are working round-the-clock to deliver on our promises to our nation and the world,” says Allan Muhumuza, Vice-President, Marketing &amp; Sales of Kiira, on the company’s mission to build eco-friendly mobility solutions for urban masses in a country of about 40 million.
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It all started in 2007 as an extra-curricular activity by a group of students and teachers of the Department of Engineering and Mathematics led by Professor Sandy Stevens Tickodri-Togboa and Paul Isaac Musasizi, currently CEO of Kiira, at Uganda’s Makerere University.
Tickodri-Togboa was head of the department and, together with Musasizi, decided “the paradigm for training university students should be changed, as by the time they graduated, they didn’t have the skills for a working world”.
So they decided to start various extra-curricular projects for students after normal class hours.
Along the way, they were invited to be part of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) initiative with the aim of designing and producing a five-passenger plug-in hybrid electric vehicle targeting the Indian market.
Makerere was “the only participant from Africa”, and as part of the project, eventually developed the two-seater Kiira EV, aptly the color green.
The financing came from the Presidential Initiative Fund for Science and Technology Innovations, and the electric car designed and built in Uganda for the first time was launched by President Yoweri Museveni in 2011.
“The original idea was to use the electric car in the Makerere University campus,” recalls Tickodri-Togboa.
In 2014, the team built Kiira EV SMACK, a sedan its makers say is ‘Africa’s first electric hybrid vehicle’; and thereafter in 2016, the 35-seater Kayoola Solar Bus, again ‘a first in Africa’.
“That we have talent in Uganda has been demonstrated with minimum resources… and we also have very good natural resources,” says Musasizi, the engineer-entrepreneur behind Kiira.
<div id="attachment_34060" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34060" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34060" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Uganda-electric-car-e1509349192781-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" />A prototype hybrid sedan is being ripped apart at the Kiira headquarters. (Photo supplied)</div>
The government of Uganda, acting through the Uganda Investment Authority, has now allocated 100 acres of land for a vehicle assembly plant expected to open in Jinja, a town in the eastern region of Uganda, in 2018.
In contrast to the used expensive imported vehicles on Uganda’s roads, these will be factory-fresh vehicles made in Uganda.
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Right now, Kiira has the three prototypes, and is looking at 305 units in the first year of production. These will mostly be pick-up trucks and buses.
The idea is to also convert the masses using public transport – mostly the ubiquitous matatus and boda bodas.
“We want to shift the market from 14-seater matatus to this. But most of all we want to reduce traffic and congestion. Our buses will be bigger to seat more people,” says Muhumuza, also an engineer.
“We realized that if we are to solve Africa’s traffic woes, the biggest need was to address public mass mobility, as that’s where the volumes and problems were. But also at the same time provide sustainable green solutions… Our emphasis was on the technology, to show that Africa can build solutions for Africa and these can be futuristic as well.”
At the time it was built, the solar bus cost an estimated $150,000 – it has solar panels on the top that powers lithium-ion batteries. If mass-produced, costs will come down.
“It’s a capital-intensive project and we are open to get tech and financing partners,” says Muhumuza, adding Kiira is in advanced talks with some technological partners.
“We are seeing a niche, a special place in public mobility in urban spaces that can be addressed by green buses,” says Musasizi.
East Africa’s automobile sector seems on track for more news. In neighboring Rwanda, there are reportedly plans to set up a Volkswagen manufacturing plant.
Outside the offices of Kiira, the prototype hybrid sedan is being ripped apart by men in blue overalls and being re-engineered. The car is a mere skeleton of its former self, but its journey on Uganda’s bustling streets, powered by an African sun, may just be about to begin.

On The Road To A Green Future

The man at the gate, lacking an intercom, leaves to deliver the message of a guest’s arrival by mouth. Fresh patches of plaster point to renovations on the iron-roofed single-storey building in the Kampala suburb of Bukasa. The occupants of the main workstation compete for space with stacks of paperwork. As Choksi, the administrator, offers a drink, she apologizes for the lack of glasses. The water comes in a mug with a conspicuous crack on the side. It’s a scene akin to start-ups run by varsity drop-outs in their parents’ garage. Only this time, the founder is a millionaire.
For two decades, Ian Clarke, a Northern Irish-Ugandan medical doctor, made his fortune operating the International Medical Group, which boasts 22 clinics, a health insurance company, a hospital, a diagnostic laboratory and a university. In 2015, he sold a majority stake to Mauritian company, Ciel Healthcare, retaining a shareholding of just 9.88%, according to records at Uganda’s company registry reviewed by FORBES AFRICA.
“I am in my 60s and you get to a point where you say ‘I have been doing this all my life because I am passionate about it’. I wanted to make a difference, and then somebody gives you a lot of money. You say ‘okay, that’s not bad’,” Clarke says.
Selling a huge stake in his company didn’t mean Clarke was prepared to put his feet up.
“I probably should have gone on a cruise, traveled the world and spent my money. And then decided I would invest it in start-up entrepreneurial companies, and I look at that now and I say ‘what the hell was I doing?’”
Clarke is no stranger to such decisions.
In 1987, he had a thriving medical practice and a retail business in Northern Ireland. But, a constant urge to live life to the fullest saw him move to Uganda, which was emerging from a five-year guerilla war that brought President Yoweri Museveni to power. Having sold his business to a brother, Clarke uprooted his family the following year and flew off to Uganda as part of the Church Missionary Society. He was assigned to Kiwoko, in the Luweero region, 77 kilometers north of the capital, Kampala.
Word spread of a doctor’s presence in the deprived village, and Clarke woke up to lengthy queues of people seeking medical attention. A priest at the local church gave up his chair and a papyrus mat served as the examination table. Operations took place under a tree. When Clarke sought volunteers for his makeshift clinic, he found Moses Sekidde, a 20-year-old elementary school dropout who understood just enough English to serve as an interpreter. Clarke trained a group of about 30 to handle simple ailments, leaving himself to deal with the complicated ones, which could be as many as 300 cases a day.
When rains poured, they moved the clinic into the church, where one vestry served as the examination room and the other as the treatment room. This was unsustainable and a few months in, the community started laying bricks for construction of a dispensary. By 1991, with the support of donations, the Kiwoko clinic had been built into a fully-fledged hospital.
“As a person I liked him because that was my first time to see a person from a developed country participating in activities which I thought an Englishman couldn’t do,” says Sekidde. “He was our driver, he was a carpenter, at times he would be the health educator teaching mothers, and other times he participated in farming.”
“Your duties at that time depended on the needs of the day,” adds Sekidde, who has since obtained university education and remains employed by the hospital.
Clarke’s past in Northern Ireland prepared him for the work he was doing in Uganda.
“Even though I was a medical doctor, I had done some business in Ireland as well. So I think, unlike many doctors who just know their medicine, I had learned something, I had a retail business which I sold to my brother. He’s got a very successful business there. And I was brought up on a farm,” says Clarke.
“That ability to just take what’s there and work with it, which I suppose I learned on the farm, is probably what I put to work in Luweero and built a clinic and then the clinic became a hospital and so on and so forth.”
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After running the hospital for a few years, Clarke suffered testicular cancer which saw him leave for treatment in Ireland. He returned to Uganda in 1994 to start his own practice, the International Medical Center in Kampala, which evolved into the International Medical Group.
“I basically made a decision that I didn’t want to be just working the aid world. I didn’t want to always be begging for money,” says Clarke.
“That’s when I sort of moved and said let me do a clinic that people will pay for and then I would use the surplus to build – my ambition was to build a hospital… I had this vision and this goal, but there were many steps to achieve that. And in that process there were some successes and some failures. And a lot of it was just grind. Don’t forget it took 20 years, at least, from that time to today.”
As Chairman of the eponymous company, Clarke Group, he oversees diversified holdings in entities, including the International Medical Group; a US sterilization tech company, Eniware; an elementary school; the International Health Science University; chicken and coffee farms; the Seasons Lodge, a hotel in Zanzibar; and a start-up low-cost tech building company, IMG Construction. By next year, the group hopes to establish a business school in Kampala.
“I don’t really have these big bank balances, sitting around. I always invest in something. People come to me and they want me to invest in funds… but I think I would rather manage my own investments and be in control,” he says.
<div id="attachment_34050" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34050" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34050" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Clarke-Group-house-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="332" />A low-cost house is being built at a site piloted by the Clarke Group in the Muyenga suburb of Kampala. (Photo by Joseph Burite)</div>
With so many business interests, Clarke relies on his son, Sean , to help him run Clarke Group. Sean seems to follow in his father’s footsteps, having uprooted his family from Bristol, England, to return to Uganda seven years ago. The holder of an MBA had risen through the ranks of the International Medical Group to become chief operating officer, before the sale, and now runs the education segment of the group.
“Sean is the CEO of the education [segment], I am concentrating on the farm and I am still chairman on the medical side. So it splits it up easier,” says Clarke, who has two other children, Lauren and Michael. “I don’t want him following in my footsteps. I mean it’s easy for him being in my shadow, but saying he is the CEO of Clarke Education – that then put’s responsibility on his shoulders and he’s got to develop that and he’s got good experience.”
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Sean is relishing the opportunity.
“There’s a lot about Uganda that I like. There’s a can-do sort of thing. You really feel like you can do whatever you want to do,” Sean Clarke, 41, says. “In the west, a lot of doors are closed. If you have a business idea, someone is already doing it. If you have a concept, there are a lot of things getting in your way, there’s a lot of bureaucracy to overcome. There’s a lot of regulation and a lot of circulation in a lot of markets if you want to do something.”
“In Uganda, there’s a lot of need and need equates to opportunity. And I think that’s where we have thrived,” adds Sean.
Though successful, Clarke remains humble.
“I am not an especially humble person, but I remind myself that I didn’t get here because I’m such a brilliant person. Any of those ventures could have failed. There were plenty of times that I lost money and made wrong decisions.”
“If you have a moment where things are okay, then be thankful and don’t ever get to that point where you are arrogant or think you are better than other people,” says Clarke.
“I don’t think I can ever feel like here I am, I am on top of the mountain. I don’t think an entrepreneur is really ever certain.”
He may be humble, but there’s no denying Clarke’s achievements. &#8211; Written by Joseph Burite

The Missionary That Built A Business Empire

The Java House café at The Village mall in Kampala is teeming with customers as smiling waiters serve coffee as hot as the afternoon mercury.
Amos Wekesa, who has run two of Uganda’s most successful tour companies, Great Lakes Safaris and Uganda Lodges, for the last 16 years, is here with friends, chilling in military style shorts and a t-shirt with the words ‘I&#8217;m So Uganda’ on it. Within minutes of speaking with him, it’s clear he is a walking-talking ambassador of his country.
“I have never boarded a plane in the last 10 years without ‘Uganda’ on my chest,” says the amiable 44-year-old. “I encourage every Ugandan to do the same. No one can talk about Uganda better than Ugandans, and everyone should help spread the message.”
With an annual income of $6 million from his companies, Wekesa says he has been fortunate, but has had to work extremely hard. The day we meet is his first day off in four weeks – he started it by running 10 kilometers and slept through the rest of it before heading to Java House.
The whole café seems to know him – customers and staff stop by his table to shake hands and ask about his most recent mountain expedition or his next trip across the Nile.
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Wekesa, born into a family of smugglers in Lwakhakha on the border of Uganda and Kenya, says this is a world away from the life of penury he knew growing up in the 70s. Daily provisions were scarce and from the age of seven, Wekesa would smuggle rations like sugar and coffee from across the border to sell illegally in Uganda, sleeping with his many siblings in thatched houses that leaked. He never went to school until the age of 10, or even wore a pair of shoes until much after.
“The day of a hungry man is an extremely long day. If hunger can’t inspire you, then nothing in life can. And I was hungry for success,” says Wekesa.
Today, he owns properties across Uganda and hopes to build a five-star hotel in Entebbe before he turns 50. He already has two-and-a-half acres of land allotted for this purpose.
Every year, through his companies, he also helps an increasing number of Indians – forced to flee Uganda to the United Kingdom during Idi Amin’s regime – return and re-settle in Uganda.
“Most of them were young and angry when they left in 1972, but are happy to see the changes in the Uganda of today,” says Wekesa, who helps reconnect them with the friends, colleagues and homes their families left behind. By 2022, Wekesa says he aims to “have 5,000 of them returning”.
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The tourism industry helped Wekesa find himself. Until age 28, he did odd jobs – starting out as a sweeper earning less than $5 a month – but his experience as a small-time tour guide led him to save $200 to open his first business, Great Lakes Safaris.
“Uganda is the most diverse country in the world. There’s no other that has as many fresh water bodies… and then the great climate and fertile soil.”
Although Wekesa believes tourism in Uganda has “not yet begun”, he sees a lot of hope as the government knows its potential as a good driver of the economy. Forever the optimist, he says tourism has the capacity to generate as much as $12 billion a year.
The father of three is also a lover of sport, having played competitive tennis “until about five years ago”.
“Competence in sport helps you make better judgments in life. You have to fight for your position and that’s what a businessman does. It helps you understand teamwork.”
He encourages his children to play sport but admits they will never understand the hardship of his childhood.
“My mother is still alive,” says Wekesa, “but cries every time she sees me, as when I was a baby, because of the poverty, she had wanted to kill me but stopped herself when she had a dream one night and somebody told her, ‘don’t touch that child’!”
Luckily for Uganda she didn’t.

Tag: Uganda

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