#OutToLunch How to be your own NSSF

How to be your own NSSF

By Denis Jjuuko

Some years ago, I walked into the wood paneled office of one of my mentors, a Kampala lawyer. I had gone to ask him of his views on becoming a consultant. When I eventually told him what was on my mind, he leaned in swivel chair and decided to talk to me about my mother, of all people!

“You see, your mum,” he started. “She has since retired from teaching. Since she has been an employee, teaching in government schools, every month, there is some little money she is paid,” he said before continuing. “It isn’t much really, but it can help her buy some groceries.” I was now all ears. But as a young man, I wondered what this was really about. It wasn’t too long before he made his point.

“If consulting is what you want to do, that is fine but remember that you have to work for your pension. Unlike your mother, when retirement comes, there will be no government sending you some little money for groceries every month,” he warned. The jury is still out there on whether I am set up for retirement.

However, I remembered this story for the umpteenth time when yet again the management or the lack of it (depending on whose side you take) of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) came up once again. Every few years, NSSF is put under the spotlight that the only solution is to kill its monopoly so that workers have a say on where they save their money. That may not happen in our lifetime so what can one do?

Well, the simple answer is that everyone lucky enough to have a job can become their own NSSF. It is mandatory that every private sector employer sends 15% of their employee’s salary to NSSF to invest and pay 20% of it when somebody clocks the age of 45 and has saved with NSSF for 120 months (the latter makes no sense, but that is the law) and the rest of the money when one turns 55 years old. For most people who are lucky to reach this age, this is usually the only money they ever have to see them through retirement.

But like my mentor told me, you can do your own savings. And this is one of the ways to do it. If you are looking for a job today or you have just started out, as politicians and those in charge of NSSF blab through the media, just study where NSSF invests your money and replicate it on your own.

Largely, NSSF invests money in long term treasury bonds, shares in listed companies in the region and real estate. All these options are also available to you regardless of how much you earn.

Let us assume that you earn Shs500,000 a month as your take home and you save 15% of it every month. That would be Shs75,000 per a month or Shs900,000 a year. To buy treasury bonds or bills, you only need Shs100,000 which means that you can invest money after just one and half months of saving 15% of your Shs500,000 salary. All you need is to walk to your bank (many banks do this) and open a CSD (Central Depository System) Account and start buying these government papers which are sold every two weeks.

NSSF has time so it invests long term. And the longer the period, the better the returns. If you buy a 15 or 20 year bond, you can get as much as 18% annually. And the beauty of this is that if you invest in these long term bonds, you only pay 10% as tax on your interest. If you go for bonds below 10 years, you pay as much as 20% in taxes on your interest.

So if you are doing this and you are 25 years old, there is no reason you don’t go for 15 or 20 year bonds. You have a lot of years before you retire at 60 years old.

What you need to be aware of is that this interest is paid every six months so ensure that when your account is credited, you invest it again. Don’t touch this money until the maturity of the bond and then invest it again for 15 to 20 years. If this is too much work for you, approach your insurance company, and invest in unit trusts though they pay only about 11% net of tax annually. NSSF can do it for you too as they allow voluntary savings.

By the way, you can break a bond at any time if you want to get your money by selling on the secondary market. Your bank will do this for your effortlessly but don’t be prompted to eat the money. The art of investing for retirement is to delay gratification to a later date.

NSSF also invests in real estate and there aren’t many sectors as lucrative as real estate, long term. You may wonder how somebody who is saving Shs900,000 a year will be able to invest in real estate. Invest in land you can afford of about Shs2 million or Shs3m which you can easily get in Luweero or Mpigi or Mukono or any place where you live (for those away from Kampala). Keep this land for 20 or 35 years and you will be in things. Uganda’s population is continuing to grow, putting pressure on real estate. So there will be a lot of demand. You can also get your close friends with the same vision and invest together.

Where else can one invest? On the stock exchange. NSSF invests there too. You can as well but don’t limit yourself to Uganda or the region as NSSF. Companies like Chipper Cash, which is regulated by Bank of Uganda, enable you to buy shares of the world’s biggest brands such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft or whatever company you see listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

So if you invested 15% of your salary yourself, you would have much more money than NSSF will deposit on your account at age 55 but the beauty is that you will still have your NSSF money as well. So that, like Ugandans say, eat like a farmer during your retirement.

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

Tags: Denis Jjuuko, NSSF, Out to Lunch, Prime Time Communications, Savings

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Some of the big bets for 2026

By Denis Jjuuko It was just the other day when many people were making resolutions for 2025. Days turned into weeks, months and now a whole year. You blink, and it is a new year. I hope that you managed to achieve those targets you set for 2025. If you didn’t, well, you can still list them for 2026 and work on the issues that made you fail to achieve them. Well, there are so many things that are happening in 2026. An election is upon us and it comes fast—starting on 15 January. I hope that your candidate wins and most importantly that they do what they are promising to do. In the meantime, I thought of a few things that could be important in 2026. They could be business ideas or stuff that may make your life better one day. Generators, power back up As I was writing this, a close friend called me and she sounded desperate. Her electricity had failed and she was worried about spending yet another night in darkness. She had bought an inverter but because of a prolonged power shutdown in her residence area, her batteries were drained. She fears darkness. So, she thought I could be a plug for a standby generator for a night. We made frantic phone calls but many people with generators for hire had closed for the night. Anyway, it reminded me of a visit I made a few months ago to a friend’s home. I found people installing a generator. My friend had rightly predicted that the transition from one electricity distributor to another wouldn’t be that smooth and had envisaged the return to darkness. I had thought that he was panicking. He wasn’t. The new distributor has told us that electricity will stabilize in a few years. So, in 2026, either get a standby generator for your home or business or start dealing in them. Water harvesting When electricity fails, the guys at Katosi and Gaba inform us that they can’t pump water from Lake Victoria. This means that the taps soon run dry. When we were younger, we used to ask ourselves a silly question. What would should we rather have? Running water or electricity? We thought we had left those days more than 20 years ago. And it seems the question wasn’t even silly after all. So, what would you rather have in 2026? Water or electricity? Well, in 2026, either get a water tank for rain harvesting or start dealing in them. Car parts The smart guys at the Ministry of Works and Transport have declared a mandatory vehicle inspection at your cost. Not a bad thing if it would make our roads safer. But if you live in some of these parts of Kampala, most likely your car won’t pass the test. If it does, it will not be in a good shape a few days later. Some of the roads in Kampala have the biggest potholes ever seen in the world. If you drive a car that was once owned by somebody in Asia or Europe or north America and got rid of it by selling it to you, be prepared for a new suspension every few weeks. You may also have to budget for a bumper in 2026. If you live in a neighborhood with a paved road and potholes aren’t your problems, well, still budget for some body parts. However much you rivet your car, guys will still pluck off stuff in traffic jam or they will scale your fence and “undress” your car. So, in 2026, plan for car spare parts or start dealing in them. Coffee and gold Coffee and gold are most likely going to continue being top forex earners for Uganda in 2026. You may have to look for ways to get involved. Gold, though, has expensive school fees, so invest with care. Coffee, some call it the green gold, is a bit easy. Entry fees are not so exorbitant and many people have knowledge of how to grow it, trade it or drink it. If growing it is where you want to start, think of some bit of irrigation. Changes in the climate are real but also water in Uganda is easily available in many parts where coffee is grown. A few feet underground, and there is reliable water all year long. In 2026, find a way to deal in coffee, remember “it doesn’t lie” or even gold if you have the school fees. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

January 22, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: How Uganda’s next president could easily reduce the housing deficit

By Denis Jjuuko It is not uncommon to find a social media post in Uganda regarding the price of land or property being shared many times. The argument is that land prices are extremely high especially around Kampala and in many major cities or towns across the country. With an ever-increasing population and poor infrastructure and services a few kilometres outside these major urban centres, it shouldn’t be entirely surprising that land is expensive. I have always given an example of Mpigi town, which is nearer to Kampala than Entebbe but a difficult place to commute due to poor infrastructure. Yet with the Entebbe expressway or even the old road, Entebbe is an easier place to access. So, land prices around Entebbe will always be high as not many people would make Mpigi their area of residence while working in Kampala. That though will change when the Kampala-Mpigi Expressway is complete. However, construction of infrastructure such as expressways in Uganda takes a very long time leading to people crowding around the urban areas where it is easier to commute to their workplaces and services such as hospitals and schools are better. This increases pressures on land for housing purposes in urban areas. And as the population grows, land, an inelastic resource becomes more expensive. Many young people end up struggling to build houses. With the current housing shortage said to be over 2.4 million units in Uganda, poor infrastructure and services and an ever increasing population, the price of land will only continue to rise unless the government does something. And that wouldn’t be nationalizing land like some people urge whenever there are delays in executing infrastructure projects or when the price of land is seen as a hindrance to young people owning houses. Government must realize that the most valuable asset the majority of Ugandans will ever own is a house. Once people own property, they wouldn’t want to create so much chaos that could lead to destruction. Empowering young people to own houses should therefore be in the government’s best interests. Since land in Uganda for housing is largely owned by private entities or communities who determine its cost without any guiding principles, government could create a land bank from which individuals could buy land or a house. How would this work? And since we are going to the polls next week, the country’s next president has his work well cut out. In urban areas like greater Kampala, government could buy large tracts of land in Mukono, Mpigi, Mityana and Luweero and demarcate it for planned housing estates similar with what private land dealers do but a bit better. Land would be divided into small pieces with architectural plans drawn by leading experts. Schools, recreation, and health facilities would be planned. The government would then sell the land at a rate lower than the private sector. Nobody would be allowed to deviate from the architectural plan. If you bought in an area with bungalow houses, you build the exact bungalow. If you bought in an area for storied villas, you build a storied villa as per the architectural plan. Each person or legally married couple would be allowed to buy only one plot and you can’t sell it to another person at any rate. If a buyer prefers to sell, he sells it back to the government at the price he bought it. This would protect the land from speculators who buy, hoard and then sell at an exorbitant price. Because the cost of building a house with a given architectural plan is easy to establish, banks would only rent a certain amount of money. Banks willing to lend the money would not give it to the individual as is usually the case, rather a prequalified construction company that can deliver the house within the established cost of building it with a capped interest rate or profit. This is how Islamic banking works and therefore not a novel idea that is difficult to implement. Should a person fail to pay, the government buys it from the bank at the set amount and then sells it to somebody else. People could pay in installments over a given period. Monthly deductions could be made to salaried workers such as civil servants interested. The government can then construct roads and expressways to those areas as many people would be living in these housing estates. Public transport, schools and health facilities would be prioritized. More young people would end up owning houses and therefore a huge stake in their country and ministry of urban planning would have something big to deliver. The price of land for housing would plummet too enabling more people to own houses. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

January 20, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Replicate innovation hubs in Kampala and refugee settlements across the country

By Denis Jjuuko Airpods in the ears. Hands busy with a smartphone. Shoulders holding a leather laptop carry bag. Legs covered in sagging pants. Torso well covered in a jumper with a hoodie. Hair spiked. Sunglasses on. It is a familiar sight at a building in Kampala where young people trying to replicate Silicon Valley converge to work on largely fintech applications. At least a floor in the building provides open spaces where these people work on their ideas while sipping iced coffees sold at a cafeteria in the corner. Walls are covered with inspiring graffiti of quotes by famous people or even bible verses. The young people are on a mission to make it big in the tech world. Those who find some breakthrough, which usually means nailing somebody willing to invest in their ideas or provide a grant, move to the office cubicles partitioned with glass, providing more inspiration to those still on the journey. These workspaces have many names. Incubation centres, ideation labs, entrepreneurial hubs, job centres. They are usually funded by development partners as a way of subsidizing the cost for these emerging entrepreneurs, developers, inventors, creators or whatever they prefer to call themselves. Perhaps having seen some impact in urban areas, these centres were replicated in many of Uganda’s refugee settlements across the country. At these centres, youthful refugees and host communities access high speed internet, get access to computers and sometimes machinery and tools that enable them to bring their ideas to life. The development partners sometimes throw in training like how to use multimedia platforms to market their businesses or find work. Small grants for groups with innovative ideas or even for those who are dedicated to their work are common. Access to high-speed internet has helped a few of them to create great products. On a visit to the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, I found an interesting group that makes guitars. They taught themselves via YouTube tutorials and they are able to market their shiny guitars to global customers through social media. They have been supported by Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities (PROSPECTS), a project implemented by the International Labour Organization and funded by the Netherlands. It is remarkable what young people can do once they are enabled to innovate. Skilling is critical not just in vocational jobs. But also, in soft skills such as communication and digital marketing. How can they use WhatsApp Status, YouTube or TikTok to push their products out? How can they use YouTube to learn a new skill? I don’t think there is a vocational school that sets itself out there to teach making guitars but those refugees in Nakivale found a niche and made it work even though they have a long way to go. I have heard of people who taught themselves baking, weaving, and a few other things via YouTube tutorials and are now earning a living and even employing others. Once young people have access to affordable internet, many can teach themselves similar skills once they appreciate what they can do with a smartphone. Multimedia skilling programs for youth such as those offered by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) through Uganda Communications Universal Service and Access Fund (UCUSAF) are a good starting point. I have seen people learn making professional posters through platforms like Canva or videos using CapCut thereby joining the creator economy. I think there is a need to replicate the incubation hubs in Kampala and job centres in refugee settlements at subcounty level or even district level to start with. Here, young people would converge even if once a week to discuss with like-minded individuals, teach themselves skills and form partnerships and synergies that would enable them to scale their ideas or enterprises. Of course, regular trainings and mentorship would be important. They would be able to access high speed internet, computers or virtual reality gadgets. They would also test out their ideas and over time have access to those who may have been able to succeed. They would also provide markets to themselves. If one has mastered digital marketing, another involved in another industry would be able become their customer. We have also talked about value addition for a long time. Machinery is expensive. Knowledge is scarce. If people grow some coffee in Bukomansimbi or Budadiri and you want them to add value, a roastery can be installed at this hub where those interested can roast and package their coffee. As they grow, they would be able to scale on their own. If the hubs are somewhat working for youths in Kampala and refugee settlements, they can work too in rural communities. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

January 20, 2026