#OutToLunch Covidex and Kiira provide a case for indigenous knowledge investment

By Denis Jjuuko

In many parts of rural Uganda, when people wake up in the morning, they grab some water in a small container and head to the kitchen where they pick a piece of charcoal from firewood used the previous night and then start brushing their teeth.

If you have lived in urban areas all your life, you will be shocked by this practice. You will call these guys villagers, which they are and you may add that they are backward, which they might not be.

Recently, multinational toothpaste conglomerates have started packaging charcoal-based toothpastes and they cost more than ordinary toothpastes. They also have packages that are labelled herbal. What do villagers know that urbanites don’t?

Yet the reason most people in villages use charcoal and other plants to clean their teeth today is because they don’t have money to buy packaged toothpaste. For many years, we regard western products as superior and our indigenous ones as inferior.

Ugandans on social media love coming up with memes with those in English or have western names as superior and those in local names or languages as inferior. We abandoned our indigenous knowledge in pursuit of products whose intellectual properties we don’t own.

How do we return to indigenous knowledge in making our products? Last week, the National Drug Authority (NDA) under enormous public pressure approved Covidex, a herbal drug said to provide relief to COVID-19 patients. Covidex was developed by Prof Patrick Ogwang at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) if you ask one group. Another group will say Prof developed it on his own.

Whatever the story, it shows that it is time to invest more in our indigenous knowledge. Covidex is said to be largely from a tree known as Mukuzannyana/Mukuzannume or Warbugia Ugandensis. The tree has been around for generations and has been used to treat respiratory ailments but we hadn’t done much to exploit it before. There are hundreds of other plants which are medicinal and used to cure people before western medicine took over.

Had Covidex been made elsewhere, NDA wouldn’t have perhaps taken the path they took to authorize its use. If Covidex continues to do its magic against the monster that is COVID-19, it presents a case for much more research and investment in indigenous products. However, even if it doesn’t, it provides a case for more research and investment in indigenous knowledge.

Before the Bazungu turned up in Uganda, people knew and had developed expertise to deliver babies through caesarean births using local brew as disinfectant among other innovations. Today, we even import some ingredients for sanitizers!

If we are to succeed with the next Covidex, we need to significantly invest in research and development. We must encourage young people to innovate beyond the development of payment apps.

It is not a surprise that Covidex has its origins at a university or developed by people involved in a university, just like Kiira Motors before it. Universities are centres where people dream and develop capacities to research products. Many innovative products (Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc.) start that way but we must be intentional about them by providing the necessary funding.

Talking of Kiira Motors, as the country was consumed by the approval of Covidex and indeed the deaths as a result of COVID-19, there was a story that didn’t grab national headlines. Kiira Motors has entered into agreement to produce 1,030 buses for Tondeka, a company that wants to deploy them in Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA). The deal is financed by Rentco, an outfit that is involved in asset leasing and has worked on similar projects in Tanzania and Kenya among other countries. The automotive technology partner is Xiamen Golden Dragon, a Chinese giant that specializes in making buses.

This partnership will lead to the development of our nascent automotive industry. Kiira Motors should now bring in its indigenous knowledge as it builds not only these buses but also its other products. What are those things that make a car truly Ugandan and we can sell to the world? How do we keep very old cars on the old and what kind of knowledge do we have that can make vehicles last longer?

But for this to work, it means that there is need for much more effort to exploit indigenous knowledge. If you go to rural areas, parents immunize their kids with indigenous medicine. They cut kids on the shoulder (same area where jabs are administered for some vaccines) and apply it. How can we use this indigenous knowledge to come up with vaccines and other innovative products?

The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

Tags: COVIDEX, Denis Jjuuko, Investments, Kiira Motors Corporation, Out to Lunch

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Surging bank profitability offers critical lessons for small businesses

By Denis Jjuuko It is that time of the year again when commercial banks publish their financial results in the newspapers as part of fulfilling the regulations that govern them. Most of them have registered year on year increases in profitability, lending, deposits and total assets among other metrics. If you only read the commercial banks’ results and made conclusions on the economy, Uganda’s economy is in such great shape. All the commercial banks combined made more than Shs2.1 trillion in profits according to the figures they released. That translates to nearly US$6 billion. The shareholders must be smiling all the way to their banks. Those who haven’t invested in commercial banks, must be wondering how to get in. The good news is that several of these banks are listed on the stock exchange. A big chunk of the money banks reported to have made came from their loan books. It isn’t entirely surprising since the interest rates they charge are some of the highest in the world. Anyone who charges upwards of 16 percent in annual interest should be able to grow every quarter, half year and annually. But I think the steady growth in commercial banks profitability comes at the expenses of other sectors of the economy. Assets of defaulters on these commercial bank loans were advertised on the opposite pages of many of the results of the banks. One hand gives, another takes, isn’t that what we have always been told? However, there is no need to begrudge banks. They aren’t entirely responsible for the high interest rates in the country. The capital requirements to start a commercial bank are prohibitive and those who recently failed to meet them were downgraded to lower tiers. Also, the government borrows at such high rates giving banks carte blanche to charge similar and even higher rates. Those who borrow and default are also many. Banks tell us, lending to Ugandans is high risk. Probably it is. I believe you know somebody who castigated you for depositing money on their mobile money account on which they had renegaded to pay back. Anyway, what can we learn from the financial performance of the commercial banks? There many lessons especially for businesses. Commercial banks just like other big business that publish their results such as telecoms have one thing in common — repeat long term customers. When you sign up for a loan such as a mortgage, you commit to pay back for such a long period. If you borrow for say 10 years, the bank is nearly assured of making money from you for 120 months. Should you fail, they have a property you gave them as collateral to get their money bank. Some of the costs they incurred to sign a customer were a one off. And if you are a disciplined borrower, they almost incur no other costs to recover their money. Long term customers who pay periodically are a goldmine for any business. Unless otherwise, many people don’t change their bank accounts. So even those who don’t borrow, there is some monthly or usage fees they pay. A bank is therefore assured of income. Telecoms make money the same way. How many times have you changed your telephone line? Many people don’t change their telephone lines. That means that a telecom is assured of making money off you until you die. Repeat long term customer at its best. Even when you die, sometimes the family keeps the line so that there is some continuity especially for those involved in doing business. As small businesses, it may not be easy to have an assured customer for 10 years or a lifetime so there is need for them to work hard to attract repeat customers. It means improving the product all the time and constantly marketing so that customers can return regularly. Commercial banks and telecoms do that all the time because if they don’t, customers can move to other banks and telecoms respectively. There is a need to observe how they market, what they do to retain their customers and try to copy that even when small businesses don’t have unlimited budgets. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.

June 5, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Bank of Uganda’s small business fund good but….

By Denis Jjuuko Small and microbusinesses have always had issues of accessing capital either to grow or stay in business. Commercial lenders charge premiums and demand stuff that these small and microbusinesses can only dream of. In order not to sink, they usually stay off commercial loans preferring to remain small or turn to informal lenders if they really must borrow. Yet small businesses are the foundation on which economies are built. Collectively, they employ the majority of people in most economies. Look at the business near you, it is either small, medium or micro. The woman selling groceries near your home. The young man making street food. Your favourite boutique in the commercial complex near your office or even the eatery from which a young girl delivers food to your desk every lunch hour. It is perhaps under this background that the central bank decided to launch the small business fund (SBF). Of recent, the central bank has been advertising this facility. Under this fund, small businesses can borrow up to Shs500m at a maximum annual interest rate of 10% with a repayment period of up to four years. This sounds great. An annual interest rate of 10% sounds like manna from heaven in a market where the average rate is 20%. This kind of fund is designed to unlock the potential of small business and it is the right pathway for the economy to take. Access to capital by small businesses and individual entrepreneurs is one way through which Uganda can achieve its bold ambitions of being a US$500b economy by 2040. Currently, the country’s economy is around US$50b. Growing it by tenfold as the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development loves to proclaim nowadays is through strategic support to small and micro businesses among others. When the small businesses grow from a single employee to 10 or 100, that moves many people out of poverty. The Bank of Uganda must be commended for this step, at least for the idea. The challenge, however, with SBF is to find a bank that has this money or even willing to disburse it. The SBF brochure lists all the 21 commercial banks, 8 credit institutions, 2 microfinance deposit taking institutions and another 4 Saccos. When you contact most of these institutions, their staff will most likely feign ignorance or endlessly promise to get back to you which they don’t do. Sometimes, those which claim to have the money start changing goalposts halfway the application process. One of the promises they make is that they can get you the money immediately if you agree to forego the SBF and instead acquire one of their loans tailored for small businesses but at an annual interest rate of 20% or more. If you are desperate, this is most likely the road you will take. Remember, that application processes are not free. You have to pay commercial bank appointed lawyers and surveyors for verification and evaluation of the property or whatever will be acceptable as collateral. Usually, those lawyers and surveyors charge many times above the market rate. And then they have no shame in mentioning a low valuation as the forced sale rate. Sometimes a developed property is given a forced sale rate that is lower than an empty plot of land in the same neighbourhood. It is a fraudulent practice that the central bank must fight if it has good intentions for small and microbusinesses. There are so many other things commercial banks require which all cost money before money is or not even disbursed. I think that way their third-party service providers (lawyers, valuers etc.) get paid and keep in business. Anyway, the real reason commercial banks don’t want to disburse the SBF money to borrowers is a structural issue that the central bank must solve. The Bank of Uganda only provides 50% of the money under SBF with the commercial banks expected to provide the other half. If you borrow Shs100m, the small business fund only provides Shs50m and the commercial bank must provide the other Shs50m. The commercial bank has no interest in lending its 50% of the money at 10% annually when it can lend it at 20% while footing the cost of administration, marketing and recovery. The commercial banks aren’t charity organizations. The central bank should instead provide 100% of the money, allow banks to take 5% of the interest as their fees and remit the other 5% to the central bank. That way banks will be motivated to sell the SBF loans thereby enabling small business to access this credit. Otherwise, the current structure doesn’t solve the problems the central bank envisaged in creating the small business fund. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

June 5, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch Will Uganda’s newly discovered love for international airports grow the economy?

By Denis Jjuuko Uganda has discovered its latest love interest — international airports. We have always had one international airport at Entebbe and some airfields in many parts of the country. But those aren’t the talk of town or dominating online discussion groups and timelines. Construction of an international airport is underway in Kabaale just outside Hoima ostensibly to support the oil and gas sector. New ones have been proposed around Kidepo National Park to support tourism and facilitate regional trade. But the one that has led to more discussions has been the proposed one at Nyakisharara outside Mbarara town. Apparently, it will enable flights to south America to refuel from there on their journeys to Asia and elsewhere. The proposers of the airport claim that this is an existing gap. I am not an aviation expert, so I don’t know why these flights aren’t able to refuel at Entebbe or even existing airports in East Africa. I am also not sure whether it makes sense to build an international airport whose main business is refueling flights from south America. What else caused debate was the release of the artistic impressions of the Nyakisharara airport. Some people claimed the airport looked exactly the same as one somewhere in the Middle East. Some people prompted artificial intelligence apps to make one at least with the famous horns of the Ankole cows incorporated into the design. This newly found love for international airports within a few kilometres of each other have led to the continuation of a debate that never stops — the lack of scheduled domestic flights in Uganda. Up to the 1990s, there were affordable scheduled flights to Kasese, Arua and other parts of the country. Some still exist but they cost an arm and leg, unlike in developed markets in Europe where people fly for a song. There are many reasons that explain the lack of affordable domestic flights in Uganda. The infrastructure is poor enabling only small aircraft to operate at these fields. But that isn’t the biggest problem. The market simply doesn’t exist. Until oil starts flowing from the wells in western Uganda, the country’s economy is largely within a radius of 80km of Kampala. Otherwise, businesses in many parts of the country are small comprised of smallholder farmers and petty traders. The majority of these people have no genuine reason to fly to Kampala and if they have, they wouldn’t afford the tickets even cheap ones that would sustain an airline business. Bus companies have tried to provide executive coaches where people pay an extra Shs10,000 or Shs20,000 to travel in comfort. After a few months or years, they usually close and return to non-executive passengers. The argument the domestic flight enthusiasts give is that the markets for air travel is of those who drive personal cars to these towns. The statistics are hard to find but how many cars arrive in Soroti or Arua from Kampala every single day? There aren’t many. Most of these towns have few hotels but you will hardly arrive in a town and find no room for a night. That is why most people who travel to these towns don’t even bother to book accommodation in advance. They know these towns with fewer than 1,000 hotel rooms will have plenty of free rooms when they arrive. A town which can’t fill less than 1,000 hotel rooms each night probably doesn’t have much business going on. Decent hotel rooms in Uganda cost on average less than Shs100,000 a night including some sort of breakfast. If people can’t fill hotel rooms of Shs100,000, how would they fill aircraft of 50-200 seats on a regular basis for the airline to make money? Look at Members of Parliament, one of the biggest categories of high earners in Uganda. Many of those who represent constituencies outside Kampala come for their weekly meetings by night bus. They can’t afford to drive on a weekly basis. Where scheduled flights exist like Kasese, they don’t use them as well. If a high earning category in Uganda can’t afford to drive every week to Kampala, what about small trader in Kasese or Arua? Although we can improve the airfields to facilitate air travel, international airports in every corner of the country won’t lead to improved incomes for the majority of Ugandans. However, if we want tourists to avoid grueling road trips to Kisoro or Kidepo, smaller airports could do, which could be expanded with increases in traffic. Though investments in agribusinesses and small-scale industries could lead to improved incomes easily for the majority of people who then could be targeted for flying. As per now, international airports could end up as vanity projects. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

June 5, 2026