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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: If girls can learn to shoot a gun, they can learn to code too

By Denis Jjuuko A young girl in a school uniform surfaced on a video over the weekend. Perhaps in the lower ages of her teens, she walks majestically in an open field. It is some kind of event. The person on the microphone is ecstatic. The crowd is roaring with joy. They have probably seen this girl before do some performance. Whoever is shooting the video only focuses on the teenager. It is not clear where the video was taken but somewhere in Africa. Somebody said it was South Sudan. When she reaches the middle of the field, she confidently picks up one of the deadliest weapons ever made — the AK47 gun. She points it in the air as if she is going to shoot but she doesn’t. She instead starts to disassemble it. The crowd roars at every part removed. Within no time, she re-assembles the AK47 gun. The crowd has never cheered like this before. Her mission is done. Puts the gun down and walks away. The video ends there. I would have wanted to watch more to get the context of the entire event and what drives an entire country to gather to watch teenage school girls disassemble and reassemble automatic assault rifles. Is it about defending their country which in most cases means keeping politicians in power? Is it self-defense? Or building a significant base of future innovators that can go make better guns than the AK47? Unfortunately, it was hard to get answers to such questions from the video clip. But it keeps one thinking about the education policy of some of these African countries. Previously, African leaders had such courses branded patriotism and empowering the masses to defend themselves. The gun, particularly the Ak47, had been used to terrorize people and there was a need to demystify it, the African leaders argued. They enrolled thousands of post-primary students in such courses. The countries remain largely poor decades later. I am not so sure how long it takes to teach a kid how to learn the intricacies of assembling an AK47. It must be some good training and some good resources. Military trainers, securing a suitable venue, guns, bullets, and all that. And then much more money to organize the “graduation” event where the learners showcase their impeccable skills with the AK47 and perhaps other types of guns. The majority of these AK47 graduates will most likely not finish their formal education like is the case in Africa. Very few kids who enroll into primary make it to university or other tertiary institutions. Many actually don’t complete their secondary education. And looking at that girl in the video, perhaps the only skills she will ever have are those to do with the AK47. What is she going to do with such skills? Unless she joins the military, she may end up in a militia that seeks to topple those who trained her or into some law breaker of repute. There are many 21st century skills that young girls need to acquire ahead of learning how to shoot a gun. Digital skills are crucial to make young people competitive and if they can learn to assemble a gun, they can learn to code too. They are more likely to earn better coding than shooting guns. They are more likely to contribute to the development of their countries with digital skills than impeccable gun skills. That doesn’t mean that there is no need to secure a country but that should be left to those who are recruited into the armed forces. The majority of people don’t need military education. They need skills that can land them jobs to feed their families, pay taxes to run the country and ultimately fulfil their potential. The politicians need to think beyond themselves. Look at South Sudan where the video is said to have been made. Two old men can’t control their egos so they decide to fight each other instead of using their massive natural resource endowments to create a prosperous country. Countries don’t develop because the masses can shoot a gun. They do when the masses have skills necessary that make them competitive in the world. Imagine if that girl instead of an AK47, she was displaying coding skills?

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Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch Amalgamate saccos to provide women with patient capital

By Denis Jjuuko On 8 March, Uganda marked yet another women’s day. Several activities were carried out. High profile people gave lofty speeches once again. Promises were made. As is always the case in Uganda, group photos were taken. Meals I believe were served. And of course, some dancing. Reminders must have been made of what has been achieved and how grateful the women should be. But the majority of Ugandan women probably didn’t even notice the day. They were too busy eking a living or trying to survive to even notice. Women emancipation is still a pipe dream for many. There have been a lot of emphasis for women empowerment and some milestones have been achieved. Still, more needs to be done. One key area that can transform women’s fortunes is formal education. Averagely, the more educated one is, the higher the chances of better incomes whether as a salaried person or through entrepreneurship. There is usually some talk on education or the lack of it where many people point to one successful entrepreneur without formal education and present it as standard for wealth creation. Those outliers will always exist. Even among those with high formal education qualifications, outliers exist. But the majority of people without formal education don’t earn better than those with formal education. Many studies have been done on this by institutions like the World Bank. Households, communities and governments must ensure that girls stay in school for as long as possible. The minimum education should be completion of secondary education. Educated girls will value education and therefore will ensure their children go to school too. They will most likely not give birth to 10 kids they can’t look after. They will not easily think that the only pathway to success is marriage. And they won’t look at bride price as the route to their own success as parents. That way they will avoid becoming grandmothers at age 35. Formal education should be complimented with regular refresher courses on emerging issues. Today, everyone is talking about artificial intelligence and how it is disrupting everything. How can ordinary women get basics on artificial intelligence that is relevant to the work they do? Is there artificial intelligence that is relevant to a market vendor? Let them know about it. Digital training is necessary from time to time. Look at WhatsApp and its potential to connect millions and provide access to markets at almost no cost. Women leaders at the lowest level can be empowered to pass on skills to their people on what is working and how they can use emerging technologies for their own good. But so are a plethora of other applications that can enable people connect, promote their enterprises, seek for work or workers. There has always been a lot of talk on access to capital for women in entrepreneurship or to pay for needs such as school fees for their children. Some programs exist in that regard but sometimes the conditions are never favourable. High interest rates and short loan periods making it hard for women to borrow money to grow their enterprises or pay for their needs. Many women don’t own land which is the most common asset they can offer as collateral to banks and other lenders. Many women have had to rely on their own collective savings or saccos which lend at rates even higher than commercial banks though without the burden of collateral and paperwork. And lenders have observed over many years that female borrowers usually pay back more than male ones. A case, therefore, exists for a more long-term fund for women to access patient capital at low interest rates with less paperwork. Alternatively, how can many of the thousands of women saccos be amalgamated into a fund that has the organizational and operational capacity to provide fellow women patient capital? The Bank of Uganda and the government can guarantee the members protection of their money by providing oversight and insurance, similar to what they do with commercial banks or depositors’ money. The money raised by these saccos could be invested and the returns used to create an endowment fund that lends patient capital to millions of women. Women empowerment would move from being part of beautiful speeches and footnotes of studies into something ‘tangible’ that can truly transform the lives of the majority of women. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

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Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: High temperatures and what districts could learn from Buganda

By Denis Jjuuko Kampala used to be known as the city of seven hills but that was long ago. As the city expanded, so were the hills. If you get a chance to stand at the top of some of these hills, you will see many more hills in now what is considered the greater Kampala metropolitan area. Many people are increasingly settling onto these hills. It can be spectacular and probably a future source of tourism revenue for enterprising business people. All they need is a good high-rise structure on which telescopes could be mounted for people to see what Kampala has got to offer. The problem though is that some of these hills may end up embarrassing us. Take the example of a hill that you face when driving from Masaka to Kampala. Around Maya, you will face the Nsangi hill, full of houses that explain our lack of proper planning. One house faces this side, another faces the other side. One is multi-floors and another is the size of a poor man’s single room hut. But they all have one thing in common— a lack of trees. At least the original seven hills that formed Kampala have lots of trees. The ‘new’ ones? Something needs to be done. They were all originally well treed. Then land entrepreneurs showed up with graders. Cut down the trees and subdivided the hills into plots measuring 50×100 feet in size or less. They heavily advertised them as “organised” housing estates. Kampala’s middle class rushed to acquire them and started competing on who puts up the ugliest structure. Some built houses almost the size of the entire plot leaving absolutely no space to plant a tree or even some grass. The hills have ended up of what one once called a concrete jungle! Outside Kampala, forests were cut down for timber and charcoal and we didn’t think much of replacing the trees. Certainly, we had never heard of sustainable logging. Deplete everything and blame some faceless mafia. The trick works on the masses. That perhaps explains the high temperatures we are experiencing in Kampala and across the country today. If you drive through the countryside where the significant majority of the population depends on rainfed agriculture, a hunger crisis looms even though this is expected to be the dry season. Although harsh weather events or even changes in the climate that affect Ugandans can’t be entirely blamable on Ugandans, there is much that we can do ourselves. One of the easiest things to do is planting trees, many of which wouldn’t require much effort to grow. Perhaps the tree should be one that offers benefits to people regularly such as fruit trees from which income could be derived. The people at the helm of Buganda Kingdom understood this and initiated a tree planting plan at every betrothment (kwanjula) and last funeral rites ceremonies and this could further be escalated by the district local governments. At least in urban areas, everyone who builds a house is supposed to have an approved architectural plan. Urban planners should ensure that each plan presented for approval has trees as part of it. And before occupation permits are issued, there must be trees already planted. When urban authorities visit rental properties to determine and/or collect property service tax, they should check whether the trees exist and if not, a penalty could be administered. The Uganda Revenue Authority could do the same when collecting rental income tax. Where commercial building in the city can’t have trees, they can commit to maintaining trees on the streets on which they are located or a nearby public park. Failure to do so, they would receive a penalty. Real estate dealers who subdivide land into the so-called organised housing estates would be required to plant trees along the main roads within that estate as part of their license and this could be done well before the land is sold. No trees planted; no land titles issued. The land registry would have to work with the district local governments on this. Those who buy the land would be required not to temper with the trees. They can only maintain them. Enforceable penalties for those who fail to adhere to this. Of course, for this to work, the districts and urban authorities would have to be intentional with supervision to ensure compliance. It should not be too difficult to enforce. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

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