#OutToLunch: Incentives could further switch on West Nile for investment

OutToLunch: Incentives could further switch on West Nile for investment

By Denis Jjuuko

On my first visit to Arua in West Nile, many years ago, my colleagues and I decided to unwind by visiting a nightclub or something similar to it. We were young and free. We had made the long trip from Kampala, rested a bit and decided to indulge in the night, enjoy some Lingala and whatever a bustling border town has got to offer.

I had seen a huge electricity generator station by the roadside, a few minutes to Arua town but hadn’t paid much attention to it. I had also not done much research about the city’s night life. It was one of those days you jump into a car, drive to a town, get some accommodation and you are ready to go. A journey to discover the unknown. Some people call it adventure.

In the nightclub, I noticed something strange. As a self-confessed nocturnal at the time, I had been a ‘happening’ boy by some lousy standards. I had also worked in journalism and the entertainment sector had been part of my beat. At university, I had enjoyed the exuberance of youth through clubbing. Nightclubs, therefore, were not strange to me.

In Arua, at that nightclub, everyone had a torch. If you are considered old in Uganda, you remember the silver metallic ones with a red button on the side. Those were for the sophisticated ones. Those who lacked means had plastic ones.

The only revelers who didn’t have either a plastic or silver metallic torch, were my colleagues and I. The majority of the people pulling all dance strokes on Lingala music were partly ‘giving us the eye.’ Like in most places, you could tell that people realize you are a foreigner. You don’t understand the rules. I became more cautious and decided not to indulge much and be more of a casual observer, with one eye on the exit door.

Sooner than later, I realized why everyone who knew Arua well had a torch. At the peak of people’s enjoyment, electricity was switched off. The entire town went dark and quieter than a cemetery! Again, if you are considered old in Uganda, loadshedding is not something new to you. Electricity was always shared. If you had power today, you didn’t have it tomorrow. Rationing.

But loadshedding in most parts of Uganda at the time meant power was switched off in the early evening around 6.00pm and switched back on around 10.00pm. In Arua, power was being switched off after 10.00pm. Strange loadshedding.

*Kayoola EVS buses can now operate in West Nile following connection to national electricity grid*

Once power went off, the nightclub didn’t have a generator powerful enough to enable the rotating multicolor disco lights to be switched on. The nightclub’s standby generator was only big enough to power the sound system. That is why the revelers had torches.

They switched them on. Some pressed the red button on the switches which made the torches provide a blinkering light. Others tied them on their waists. As they pulled those rare dancing strokes that are synonymous with Congolese across the border, they provided a spectacular experience akin to that of customized dazzling disco lights. What a spectacle! The ingenuity of the West Nilers.

I have made hundreds of trips to Arua since that night and definitely power had become a bit reliable. But it is only the other week that West Nile was switched to the national electricity grid. It is a remarkable achievement or a shame that it has taken this long depending on how you look at it.

The region has unbelievable potential given its location at the borders of both the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, some of Uganda’s biggest trading partners. Both countries are expansive and a big chunk of their populations rely on cities like Arua as the source of their goods and services. I learnt that some of those guys who were rivaling Congolese dancers in that nightclub were actually Congolese who cross the border to enjoy life. Anyway, both countries also suffer regular insecurity which means investors will always keep away apart from those exploiting the countries’ massive natural resources.

But the investors could not set up businesses such as factories in Arua, to supply West Nile, DRC and South Sudan and beyond. They would rather set up in Kampala or Jinja where electricity was not such a big challenge. Yet if they set up in West Nile, they would be nearer to the market. Lack of electricity was always the challenge. Now that the problem is sorted, West Nile’s potential should now be fully exploited.

West Nile is also very diverse with many different cultures, which can be a bedrock for non-animalized tourism. Even the alleged world’s smallest church is in West Nile! Nang Nang, perhaps the world’s tastiest fish is available in basketfuls.

The River Nile cuts through the region, providing near perfect locations for riverside resorts and water sports. Land is still relatively affordable and fertile and some of the major towns are being connected by bituminous standard roads. Small planes can land in Arua. For those who love animals, Murchison National Park is partly in the region. Affordable trainable labour is in abundance.

Electricity also means companies like Kiira Motors can now set up shop for electric buses. Or investors can think of electric vehicle chargers. An electric bus trip from Kampala to Arua would cut the cost by more than 50%.

Major urban centres like Arua being border towns have populations with some bit of disposable income. But investors will need to be mobilized and incentivized so that they can set up shop. For those responsible for the country’s development, their work is now well cut out. Those selling torches, if they still existed, will have to pivot.

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

Tags: Denis Jjuuko, Kayoola buses, KMC, Out to Lunch, Prime Time Communications

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: What employees should know before launching a side hustle

By Denis Jjuuko On Friday 29 August this year, I was invited to speak to the staff of Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) about side hustles for corporates during their end of month Fireplace session. The Fireplace is an internal meeting where guest speakers discuss various topics every last Friday of the month. Here is an abridged version of my presentation. I believe others could find an interesting thing or two. In August 1972, Idi Amin launched his so-called economic war which led to the expulsion of Asians. In the months that followed, Uganda experienced unprecedent inflation. With the economy in free fall, many workers realized that their salaries were no longer sufficient. At Makerere University, the country’s premier higher institution of learning, professors took to driving taxis to supplement their income. One professor, until recently a minister in Museveni’s government, was the taxi driver. His colleague, an education professor, was the ‘turn boy’ or conductor. Others became teachers in secondary schools. Their wives turned the garages of their residences into unofficial canteens. Amin’s economic war led to the birth of side hustles in Uganda, where employees do something outside their official jobs to supplement their incomes. The importance of side hustles was further cemented in 1990s when the Structural Adjustment Programme led to thousands of people losing their jobs. Recent mergers of government agencies (rationalization as they call it) and closure of funding organizations like USAID continue to make employees think of life beyond their offices with polished floors. So, if you are thinking of starting a side hustle, what key things should one think about? Here are a few points to ponder. Time: Side hustles for people doing 8-5 jobs should not be too time consuming. Get a hustle like buying and selling land, flipping houses, buying and selling cars, bonds and unit trusts (if you can call them side hustles), or even supplies. Bars, salons, and restaurants require a lot of time when starting which you may not have as you have to concentrate on your job as well. Also, workers in such sectors are unreliable. You don’t know which day they will not turn up. Or when they will sell a crate of beer and replace it creating an impression there are no customers. Still, you don’t want to stay awake in a kafunda so that a few men not eager to get home can finish their beer and leave to enable you close the day’s operations. Cash payments: Avoid side businesses where most of the payments are made in cash. You don’t know when the workers will disappear with it. Most side hustles are small and may not have systems to protect revenues especially in the beginning. Side businesses where people pay in the bank are better. There you can protect your revenue. I know there are mobile money payment codes these days but there are still a few issues with them to be fully embraced. Small is beautiful: All business plans show profitability at one stage. Also, however much research you do, there will always be stuff you will only learn when doing the business. Start small and allow yourself to learn the trade. Don’t throw all your life savings in a business at the beginning. Don’t borrow to start. If you are to borrow, maybe from family. Start with your savings or pool money with others. Six months rule: Before you quit your job to fully concentrate on the side hustle, instruct your bank to send 100% of your salary to an investment account or unit trusts or bonds. Don’t touch this money. Now, see if you can rely on the side hustle for six months. Pay all business and personal expenses from the business. That way you will know if the business is profitable or if you have been subsidizing it with your salary. That way you will avoid looking for a job a few months of leaving one. Do what others are doing: Your side hustle doesn’t have to be innovative or ground breaking. Do what others are doing. See a sector you can invest in, where you can easily raise start up capital and get going. But run it better than others. Ground breaking ideas can then be implemented when you have money you can afford to lose or can raise the required capital from angel investors. Cashflow is the lifeblood of business: Look for businesses which have good cashflows. Planting trees that mature after 20 years should be for people investing for retirement. But doing something that brings in money regularly helps keep the business operational without necessarily relying on the salary or salary loans. Do people need to do typical side hustles? Should everyone do business? There is no clear answer. One just needs to find a model that works for them. Apart from some telecoms and banks, many businesses in Uganda that publicly publish their returns show net profitability of around 10%-15% annually. This means that an employee who invests in treasury bonds or unit trusts is likely to earn the same percentage without any hustle of running after the ever-elusive customers. It can also be a strategy of accumulating capital to venture into capital intensive side hustles that don’t require a lot of time like real estate. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

September 25, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Unambitious delayed projects, potholes creating a self-doubting population

#OutToLunch: Unambitious delayed projects, potholes creating a self-doubting population By Denis Jjuuko A few years ago, I used to frequent Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital to largely attend meetings at the African Union headquarters. If you kept away for a few months, you would return to a city that you wouldn’t recognize. A new flyover would exist within a few months. You would see people laying down railway lines and find these huge buses providing public transport. Addis Ababa in the mid 2000s was a construction site that was turning slums into hotels of certain status and other infrastructural projects. They seemed to deliver their projects without much delays. One thing I also noticed about Ethiopians is that they claimed to have the biggest everything. A cab driver or a university professor would quickly tell you that they had the biggest market in Africa — the Merkato, equivalent of our Owino. They claimed they had the largest number of cows on the continent, biggest airline, largest number of producers of leather products and coffee, biggest army and even the most beautiful women. Although some of these claims may be true and others could be debatable, Ethiopians have come to believe that they have to do the biggest things. And they go ahead and do them. Just the other day, Ethiopian Airlines launched perhaps the biggest hotel in Africa. Ethiopian Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa boasts of 1,024 modern rooms. That is perhaps why they decided to utilize River Nile a little bit more, they didn’t go around building a 100 Megawatts dam. They went for 5,150MW. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that was launched a few weeks ago is, true to Ethiopian style, billed as one of the largest infrastructural projects on the continent. And like roads and railway lines in Addis Ababa, the hydroelectricity dam, which cost US$5 billion to build was completed in 14 short years. It had many challenges such as protests from Egypt over the use of River Nile — like they do whenever anyone else wants to use the Nile waters as well as funding, technical skills and even bloody wars. But the project never got derailed. Compare it to the Grand Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo, perhaps the world’s wealthiest country, and you will understand what I am saying. Or just look at some of the countries where it takes a year or more to build a single kilometer of a dual carriage road without interchanges and bridges. To build the GERD, Ethiopia got most of the funding from local contributions in form of donations, and selling of bonds locally and to Ethiopians in the diaspora among other sources. They got very little foreign debt to achieve their project which ideally should ensure affordable electricity access to many people in Ethiopia while exporting some to neighboring countries thereby getting much more foreign revenue. Ethiopia is not some country in America, Europe or Asia. It is actually considered part of East Africa and a mere two hours by air from Entebbe. They face similar challenges like us. Wars, famine, draught and diseases among others. Like Uganda, they are landlocked and depend a lot on agriculture. In fact, we have just toppled them as the largest coffee exporter on the continent. They still produce more coffee though only that they consume a lot of it domestically. Since we are so similar and ideally neighbors, what do they have in their DNA that we don’t? How can they run an airline with more than 150 aircraft while we struggle with about six including leased ones? How can they build flyovers in Addis in months while we take decades to complete ours? Or build small hydroelectricity dams with defaults while they complete mega ones? There is a need to dream big by technocrats and be intentional about building a culture that leads us to achieve our targets and on time. We can have as many patriotic lectures as we wish but if people are driving over potholes every day and have them normalized as the way of life, we won’t achieve more ambitious targets like GERD. We will end up with a population that self-doubts itself. Businesspeople will not dream of creating mega factories or big businesses. Their ambitions will remain importing a few containers from China, driving an old Landcruiser, building a storied house in a slummy area, and another in the village and a few apartments. An ordinary Ethiopian seeing the country launching GERD or the largest hotel on the continent will dream of something as big. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

September 25, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Invest in a residential house or start a business? It is your profile that matters

By Denis Jjuuko It is one of those debates that will never end similar to the one most people are used to —chicken and the egg, what came first? Though this time it is on a personal residential house and a business or even investing in financial assets like treasury bonds. It is an issue we have discussed before in previous editions of #OutToLunch. Since it won’t go away, why not revisit it? First, let us get to speed with the differing arguments. One side of the coin posits that people especially young ones investing in personal residential houses are stifling growth and funds that may have been used to invest elsewhere is stuck in bricks and mortar. That renting is many times cheaper than owning a personal residential house. The argument continues that people should invest in personal residential houses when they are financially secure. Millions can be stuck in a residential house which doesn’t provide much returns. The other side of the coin argues otherwise. That a personal residential house is a prerequisite for growth. That it is an investment too and unlike businesses or financial assets, it is not as affected by inflation. The argument is that a residential house’s value increases year on year as the country develops. It is a low-risk asset class that leads to increment in one’s net worth. Proponents of this view also argue about peace of mind. The landlord doesn’t have to get worried if he popped in and found you eating chicken! And it can be an asset one could use as collateral for financing to invest in other areas, the argument continues. What decision, then, should a young person make? Invest their money in business, bonds or start on a personal residential house journey? These questions need contextualization, which is never provided by those who advance one argument against the other. For example, what does one want? What does the person do for a living? Can one do both? Many people are not wired not to lose money especially if they can withdraw it at any time the way it is with financial assets. If they hear something is profitable, they rush to invest into it without thinking. That is why many scammers exist. They know people who have money are easily tempted. A cousin has no fees? They rush to give. Real estate is hard to liquidate, which forces many easily excitable people to keep their wealth for the long term. But does a personal residential house curtail somebody’s financial growth? It could, where money that would have been invested in business is channeled into an asset that may not bring back immediate returns. Many Ugandans love building houses in their ancestral villages where they visit a few times a year and can’t rent out or turn them into small bed and breakfast enterprises. Others want very big and fancy ones, which they probably don’t need. And such projects could lead to the collapse of a business or deny one funds that they could have invested elsewhere to ensure financial growth. This brings us back to the issue of contextualization that we talked about earlier. In this case, it is the profile of the person. If you decided to invest in a business or financial assets, do you have the temperament to see money accumulating on your investment account without spending it on ostentatious goods? Can you see your friends holidaying in Santorini and not feel the urge to do the same? If you are a man, are you be able to handle a spouse that sings in your ear everyday about not owning a house? Of if you visit your friends, do you feel left out because you are renting? Will you be able to handle the stress that comes with a business failing? Or you will regret why you didn’t build? As you can see, there are many questions in this article. Questions whose answers can only be provided not by financial advisors on X and TikTok but by the person who is in the middle of making the decision. Building a personal residential house may be the best decision one could make. For another, it might not be the best decision. The type of house and where it is built matters as well. Similar to financial assets, where one invests matters. However, I believe that people can build residential houses while also investing in businesses or financial assets at the same time. Most Ugandans build incrementally, which is done over several years. If one had a certain amount of money, depending on their interests, they could have a percentage in a personal residential house and another in business or financial assets. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

September 4, 2025