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Who We Are: Prime Time Communications has been in existence since 2005. Since 2005, we have carried out various assignments Read More

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Our Expertise: Communication and Visibility — Our team of experts develop and implement communication and visibility activities for a wide Read More

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Latest From Our Blog

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Favourable interest rates are good for everyone, not just government

By Denis Jjuuko Now that the hullabaloo about the government takeover of Umeme is over, there is a need to ask some questions. Questions that affect most people. As you might be aware, many businesses survive on loans whether to expand, acquire new technology, or service their customers. Usually, the big businesses easily walk into a bank and get whatever money they need. Some even advertise calling lenders who would like to lend them money to bid. The lenders sometimes fall for themselves to do so. Government does the same. It even sets the interest rate it will borrow at and many times even refuse some of the money people are desperate to lend to it but to this, we shall return later. For the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), it is a totally different story. You have to chase the lenders to give you money. Their instinct is to refuse. They claim SMEs, even when collectively are the biggest contributors to the economy, are risky. Chances of not getting their money back are high. They may not be entirely wrong. The lenders especially the formal ones usually take their time, making the borrowers even more desperate sending them to underground sharks. Some times some staff of the formal lenders are not any different from the sharks. They deliberately slow the process and demand stuff that are as difficult to get as those usually required by witches. Once they realize the borrower is super desperate, they pounce many times asking anxious SMEs for a commission. Imagine borrowing money at interest rates in their mid-twenties and somebody is asking for a commission on it. The commission is usually euphemism for a bribe. Desperate SME owners give the bribe in fear of losing out. Doing business in Uganda is like living in the wild, always looking over your shoulders for predators. Yet the say that what is good for the goose should be good for the gander too. Let us look at how government paid off Umeme. We heard that they borrowed money from a commercial bank to pay Umeme. The lender didn’t quote them the usual rates. It lent them at 7% annually. I am not sure if they presented any collaterals. I believe they didn’t. Currently, the average interest rate on dollar loans is 13% in many commercial banks. So, the government negotiated itself a bargain at 7%. When they are borrowing from the masses through the treasury bonds, they are giving an average of 15% on long term bonds (10-20 years) and much less on those with short tenures (five years and below). Like mentioned earlier, they many times refuse to take all the money people are willing to lend it. They perfectly understand that high interest rates are not good for them. But if they are not good for them, how can they be good for businesses and individuals? Newspapers these days seem to be deriving most of their income from adverts putting borrowers’ assets on sale by auction for failure to pay back loans. The majority of those assets are for small businesses and individuals. It can’t be that they all misused the money and went for life or made extremely wrong decisions. Some could have been because the government itself has not paid them for supplies and services rendered for years, prompting lenders to send the toughest auctioneers their way. With the Americans closing agencies like USAID, many businesses in Uganda are going to collapse if they have not collapsed already sending thousands of workers and business owners home. At their homes, auctioneers will show up to do foreclosures on mortgages. Imagine somebody who acquired assets to service the thousands of NGOs that were getting grants from USAID? Such businesses had not yet recovered from the closure of the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) by the Ugandan government. We had not yet recovered from COVID-19 for God’s sake. And as we prepare for elections in 2026, many investors will be watching from the sidelines to see what happens. This means investing less money and therefore less jobs or income for small businesses that could have supplied them or gained contracts from the value chains. Regardless of what happened with USAID, DGF or what will happen during elections, government needs to rethink seriously the interests on loans and work out a long-term solution. They can’t be borrowing at favourable rates while sending the rest to borrow at astronomical figures. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

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Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: A world of opportunity awaits UEDCL as they take over power distribution

By Denis Jjuuko On 31 March this year, something that doesn’t usually take place in Uganda happened. A contract between the government of Uganda and private electricity distributor, Umeme, ended as stipulated in their agreement signed more than 20 years ago. Usually, there is an extension after an extension to review something or enable to finalize the transition or something similar. Even more strange, Umeme acknowledged in a statement published in newspapers that it had received USD118,385,603 as the buy out amount recommended by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG). Usually, payments from the government of Uganda take months and months, lobbying, threats to sue and even sometimes suing. Not this time. The speed at which government has worked is akin to a spouse eager to divorce their partner so that they can enjoy the warmth of their new lover. If this lightning speed is extended to all contracts and services, Uganda would surely be a better place. Although Umeme claims that its figure is USD234m and not the figure recommended by OAG, by the time of writing this, I hadn’t heard of anyone struggling to pay for Yaka or postpaid services. Nobody claimed had been switched off from electricity. Was this a case of both partners so eager to see the back of each other and willing to first each grab what they can and agree on some marital property later? Perhaps so. In fact, Umeme indicated that it would go for arbitration somewhere in London. At least, both former lovers were not punching each other and making life difficult for each other. Arbitration is always better than physical fights. The exist of Umeme ushers into almost uncharted waters for the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL). Although UEDCL has managed distribution in some areas where Umeme didn’t have presence, the scale at which they have to now operate is huge. One can only wish them the best. They aren’t particularly unique in this though. They can learn from the guys who issue driving permits. They took over from an efficient company and even became more efficient. As one of the final acts from its divorce, Umeme decided to leave by showing how much they loved their erstwhile partner and spared no coins in paying for a colorful centerspread infographic in the newspapers that showed their impact. One of their key celebratory figures was that they inherited a paltry 250,000 customers and are now handing over a base of 2.37 million customers. This is akin to a partner telling the other in a divorce case that I made you better. The 2.37 million figure made me sit up, lean back a bit in my chair, grab a mug of Ugandan coffee, sip and stare at particularly nothing. I wondered whether to celebrate or cry. We are a country of 49.5 million people according to the chaps at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) as per the 2024 National Population Census. Also, there are 10.8 million households in Uganda. On average, Uganda’s household size is 4.4 people. And since the 2.37m customers included factories, offices and buildings, it means that the majority of households in Uganda have no access to electricity. I know that some households are connected to solar power especially in rural areas but usually that is for charging a feature phone, watch some TV on a screen of the size of tablet computer and some basic lighting. Good but not good enough. And that is where UEDCL and the government of Uganda need to work. How do they make electricity accessible and affordable to all? Electricity, not just for households, leads to development and job creation. When a small town is connected to the national grid, many young people are able to set up small businesses some of which grow into large enterprises over the years. It is not uncommon to find a village where there are powerlines but the people too poor to connect their houses. Transforming agriculture would lead the majority of the folks in rural areas to afford installation and service fees as well as buying Yaka units. The UEDCL will have to be more efficient so that power is reliable and doesn’t go off whenever it rains or every time a bird plays on the wires. They will need to invest significantly in the network, modernize it to reduce losses, and nip corruption in the bud so that there is more money to generate, transmit and distribute. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

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Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Francis Kamulegeya’s school for the deaf model need be emulated

By Denis Jjuuko One day, a youthful John met Joan and they kicked off a romantic relationship that was the envy of the community. They didn’t care who was watching. If it meant feeding each other, they did. If walking while holding hands was their way of showing affection, they did regardless of living in a conservative community. It wasn’t many months later that Joan informed the love of her life that she was expecting. They were excited and looked forward to the birth of their child. Both John and Joan (not real names) informed their parents, relatives, friends and whoever cared to listen about the pregnancy. Nine months run fast if you are happy about the pregnancy. Soon, the couple was running to the healthy facility so Joan could be delivered of the baby. The process was smooth and they were soon home to raise the baby. They did everything under the sun to provide for the baby. They were a happy family. As the child continued to grow, they realized that there was something unusual. They visited a few relatives and doctors. They were soon to learn that their beloved son had lost his hearing ability. The happiness they had enjoyed turned into nightmares. John started accusing Joan of possessing bad luck informing her that in his family they don’t give birth to deaf children. Joan counter argued that she too doesn’t have any deaf people in her family. John started distancing himself from Joan and the child. He was heard telling friends that he wasn’t the father of the child. He started spending nights away from home and eventually disappeared. Joan, a young girl, saw this as a big burden and after few years decided that she could not raise the child alone. She too needed to live her life. She boarded the taxi to the village to meet John’s widowered mother. She told the mother-in-law that since John had disappeared and she too needed to survive and find another man, she is leaving the son in her care. John’s mother was puzzled but understood Joan’s predicament and promised to raise the child, like she had done with other grandchildren. This isn’t a unique case for John and Joan. It is, many times, the norm with parents abandoning children with special needs. If they don’t abandon them with their aging grandparents, they drop them at orphanages. Some even kill them! Similar stories were shared over the weekend when we gathered in the expansive well-manicured lawns of Masaka School for the Deaf as they celebrated their 20th anniversary. Nnaabagereka Sylvia Nagginda was the guest of honor. The school is the result of the benevolence of my friend Francis Kamulegeya, a well-known former corporate executive who has since traded the designer footwear for gumboots to look after the venerable. One day, Kamulegeya was in Masaka town and stopped by a hardware shop to buy materials to renovate his mother’s house. Somebody he couldn’t recognize excitedly approached him. He thought he was the usual beggar and the hardware shop had unsuccessfully tried to send him away. He wanted to tell Kamulegeya something but he was only gesturing. Kamulegeya realized the man was deaf and the hardware shop attendants pointed to a bench across the street where this man worked as a cobbler. He walked with him across to his work station in a bid to find an interpreter so he could understand what the man was telling him. They did find a lady who interpreted the message. The man was Moses Kirangwa (now deceased) who was Kamulegeya’s childhood friend in Kimaanya village, a suburb in Masaka. Kamulegeya now recognized him. They had not met in decades and talked about the lives they were living. Kirangwa told Kamulegeya that the only difference between them is that Kamulegeya had received formal education at the highest level. It struck a chord leading to the birth of Masaka School for the Deaf. It is remarkable what Kamulegeya has done with the school using personal resources to provide a topnotch school for the deaf. Thousands have passed through his hands and many were at hand to give testimony to how education has changed their lives. The school located in Ndegeya on the outskirts of Masaka city has led to the birth of a much wider project with fish ponds and a coffee farm. Proceeds from the farm support the school, creating many jobs and changing the livelihoods of people in Ndegeya. He adds value to coffee and sells to companies to give away as corporate gifts. Imagine if he was supported to create an out-grower model where the entire community supplies him coffee and increased his production capacity? The whole community would get better prices. Before that, you could sponsor some of the deaf children who have no parents or guardians. It costs only Shs1,080,000 in annual tuition fees. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

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