SMEs are Businesses and not charities Prominent Industrialist, the late Dr. James Mulwana (Rest in Peace) was once quoted by the media, calling on government to force foreign companies to support SMEs, for the latter to overcome the many challenges they face, especially competition against foreign big companies. Whereas they do need support, SMEs are […]
YES, UGANDA CAN RECEIVE 4 MILLION TOURISTS A YEAR For starters, we at Gantone (Greater Ankole Tourism Network), the tourism cluster for the Ankole region do raise our thumbs up to the immediate past CEO and Deputy CEO at Uganda Tourism Board (https://www.exploreuganda.com/), Steven Asiimwe and John Ssempebwa respectively. They set the sector on a […]
MAKERERE@100 IN UGANDA@60: Innovation into commercialization ‘…well, we will not dwell much about the first forty years, since at the time Makerere was an affiliate college… Makerere’s prime was when it was a constituent college of the University of East Africa. Those were our days, the reason we had wakina Julius Nyerere and Benjamin Mkapa, Anyang’ […]
One fact to be remembered about Mr. Ngoma Ngime when he served as RDC in Mbarara, was the learning and familiarisation tours he organized regularly for district leaders. At the end of one such tour, during a cock tail at the Uganda High Commissioner’s residence in Nairobi, he lamented why Ugandan farmers cannot adopt the […]
OIL COMPENSATIONS: LESSONS FROM MFALME AND BYAMAKA The experts and policymakers in our oil sector may want to pay a study trip to a minuscule humble remote village called Kanyeganyegye. The story rife in this village today is about two ba-falme. Mfalme in ordinary Kiswahili means king. In this village, it is a popular slang […]
For Your Memories…October 21, 2010. ‘UGANDANS LAZIEST IN EAST AFRICA’, screamed New Vision lead header, Thursday, Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Nkore -Karagwe wisdom has it that ‘ekihimbya omusi, ni ekiri omu nseiso’ (she who is grinding is motivated by what she is grinding). Uganda has the worst human resource development policy […]
‘…. you guys, munaweza mkahatarisha uchumi wenu bila kujua… This thing needs a cautious approach…you need a Maryhill Consensus …an airline is more than a business…. you recall Air Zaïre…it had been labelled ‘Air Peut-être …Air Perhaps’… in marketing, perception is reality… and this has implications to the health of an economy…more so in such […]
He savours those moments. This is his pass-time, ever since he retired from a high-flying corporate life among multinationals. We thus added BSN to our appellation of him. We call him Mzaai BSN. BSN is Been there…Seen it all…Nothing new…exciting…to prove. His favourite moments are the hours he spends mentoring corporate leaders, with a preferred […]
I must applaud my teachers at Makerere University, Prof. Oswald Ndoleriire and Dr. Sallie Simba Kayunga on their position regarding the sciences hype by government. This was the very same hype that greeted us over 20 years ago as we joined university at the time government scrapped students’ allowances, arguing that the monies saved were […]
‘…perhaps its founders had other thoughts about it…but it has now become a game-changer in our development trajectory. Its impact is seen and felt everywhere …’ The Executive Director at the Sage Fund was concluding his speech at the opening ceremony for Sage Leather Works, a multibillion leather complex in the city industrial park, one […]
It all started with American Presidential aspirant, Donald Trump. ‘This guy is very blunt’, is the spontaneous reaction of my team member as we digest what Trump had just said about Africans, capping it with the vow to deport them from the USA, once he enters Capitol Hill. ‘People who even import match sticks’, he […]
Reviving Uganda’s Textile Sector: We Need a Dose of Gandhism ‘Sir, I have three hundred workers…unemployed. And families to feed…please …’ ‘….I have three hundred million back in India……’ We return to this shortly. The latest from the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives (MTIC) is that Uganda is set to revamp its textile industry, […]
‘…it’s the magic of 100 days…you only need to experience its sweetness, to believe it…it’s not another management buzzword…it works’…, a beaming NEMA official couldn’t contain her excitement while briefing the media and the country about the authority’s landmark achievements in a hundred days of their reorientation. And landmark they are, going by where our […]
Skills. Yes, we do need them as a country and economy, for the present and the future, including saving the planet. The latest we have from the BTVET ‘alliance’ (https://www.education.go.ug/btvet/ )is the modular training plan: a P.7 (Primary seven) leaver can attend a welding course ‘module’ for a few months, enter the world of work, […]
”Yes. It is possible and urgent to have universal health insurance. It will attract quality investment in our health sector including pharmaceutical manufacturing” Universal Health Insurance Does Not Replace Health Centres The debate will not end till we have the scheme in place: Universal Health Insurance for all Ugandans. And the latest defender of no-insurance […]
‘…why don’t you have property…at your age…’? It incessantly rang and sounded in her ears as she made the final touches to the preparations for the Grand Day. Yes. Grand Day! This is the simplified label she settled on after a countless list of superlatives to describe the day. A day unlike any other! Was […]
Saturday, March 26, 2022, we buried James Mwebesa Rukwengye. RIP my brother and friend. James was the Social Manager at Shimuji-Konoike, the joint venture company constructing the Kampala flyover. The Social Manager, we were told, has the key role of ensuring that any undertaking on the project has complied with and met the social interests […]
Saturday, April 25, 2026 ‘…you all will agree with me that we each received a quality education, in a decent learning environment, because someone, somewhere, sacrificed…it is now our turn and obligation…the pioneer generations laid the foundation, which made us who we are and what we are. We, therefore, carry an even bigger obligation in […]
One popular saying in the interlacustrine region of East Africa (also known as the Great Lakes), goes thus in one of my Grandmas’ tongues: ow’omutwe muhango, n’obu otariisize, noyonesa, meaning once you are notoriously known for being careless with your flock, and it often destroys neighbours’ crops, even the day your flock is securely tethered […]
“In Uganda today, the absence of discipline and dedication to the common good hampers the potential for meaningful change.” Grandpa Dissecting Uganda today One of my favourite vacation get-aways is when I go visiting my grandma’s roots in Bulemeezi. I always return wiser after night- on-end chats with my grandpas and grandmas. And so it […]