#OutToLunch: Rampant unemployment is a key national security issue

By Denis Jjuuko

The public service ministry recently announced that more than 40,000 people applied for 287 jobs across different government ministries, departments and agencies. More than 28,000 of those who applied qualified, meaning they were selected for aptitude tests which were to be held at the Mandela National Stadium at Namboole. It must be frustrating looking for job in Uganda.

The news came after a bombshell report emanating from research by the Inspectorate of Government (IG) and the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) that indicated that Ugandans pay a whopping Shs42.34b annually to district service boards to get jobs. Averagely, the report indicated, 130,000 people pay bribes to land jobs.

The people who ask for these bribes know that the jobs are scarce and people are desperate and willing to do anything to land the jobs. When somebody who bribed their way to a job gets employed, it means a few things.

First, the person is not the best for the job. They just had the money to pay a recruiter. The best candidate may not have had the money and therefore wasn’t considered. Because the person knows they only got the job through bribery, they will continue bribing their way into senior positions. That is how we end up with incompetent people in positions of authority. People who can’t execute anything and making sure things don’t work or looking at everyone who is competent as a threat or what people call work politics.

The people who are competent end up doing very little at work so that the incompetent boss doesn’t feel insecure and threatened. That is how we end with yes people—they won’t advise their bosses. They will do whatever the boss wants whether it makes sense or not. Remember, there are no jobs and these people have families to feed. Rocking the boat isn’t something that they want to do.

Second, the people who bribed their way to jobs will only hire those who pay them a bribe. That way you end up with a corrupt layer at every level and an incompetent lot everywhere. Service delivery is impacted. Government then fails to create jobs that young people can apply for and get on merit.

Third, because the public service is corrupted, the private sector suffers too. People can’t start and run businesses professionally. The people who are in positions because they paid a recruiter will endlessly try to get a return on their investment (read bribe). Procurement processes will be compromised. Payment for services and goods delivered will be frustrated unless somebody is paid.

The bribery doesn’t end at public service. We recently saw many statements from politicians who lost elections for positions in their political parties claiming their rivals won through bribery. Some wondered why people were bribing for positions that were actually “voluntary.”

We hear that candidates for Members of Parliament in some constituencies spend more money than they would get in the five years they would spend in the office should they win. If somebody spends more money than they would be officially paid, it means they are doing so to illegally get something. Somebody who sells their house to get money for election will do anything to get their house back.

That is how we end up without jobs and seeing young energetic people leaving the country for the Middle East not to do highly technical jobs but menial ones or being trafficked for sex like we recently heard from a BBC investigation.

Government has been saying that they are intending to grow the economy to US$500 billion annually. Great stuff but with rampant corruption, it will be a tall order. There is a need to nip corruption in the bud in order to create sustainable jobs for the working age population.

Otherwise, we shall continue to see thousands of people filling up soccer stadiums to apply for a few jobs they know they stand no chance of getting. That is what they call desperation. And desperate people can do pretty much anything. Unemployment ends up being a key national security issue that the government must urgently address.

The public have a chance to play a key role here by voting people in 2026 not because they bribed them with a t-shirts or some cheap alcohol but those who can address the challenges they face such as unemployment.

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

Tags: Denis Jjuuko, Government of Uganda ., Members of parliament, Middle East, Namboole, Out to Lunch, Prime Time Communications, public service ministry, the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), the Inspectorate of Government (IG), the Mandela National Stadium

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Make cylinders of 1kg, 2kg if gas is to replace charcoal

By Denis Jjuuko On a trip to northern Uganda some years ago, I asked the transport team to provide a sports utility vehicle (SUV). I prefer SUVs for long journeys as they are more comfortable and can handle the terrain. We were to spend a week traversing the breadth of northern Uganda. It didn’t take long to realize that some of the people I was traveling with were unhappy but I couldn’t put a finger to it. I thought maybe they didn’t want to make the trip. Along the way, the driver pointed to a roadside makeshift market and said in Luganda, “laba emaali,” loosely translated as look at money while pointing at sacks of charcoal that were packed beyond the rims with a fibre net holding the extra black pieces together. That is when my colleagues said that I have made them miss returning to Kampala with charcoal. That I should have asked the transport team to provide a pickup truck. “We are not ministers to travel in this kind of car,” another angrily quipped. I was ably informed that a sack of charcoal cost a fraction of what the traders in Kampala charged. I understood their sentiments. I offered lunch and dinner for the weeklong trip, arguing that they can use that saving to buy charcoal when they returned to Kampala. I ceased being a fan of buying stuff along our highways to return with to Kampala after realizing that prices quoted by traders or vendors depended entirely on the car you drive and how you look but that is another story. Also, I have never been a fan of charcoal. I find it expensive, easily wastable by households, dirty and cumbersome to use. After that trip, I understood the place charcoal occupies in people’s hearts and households. It wasn’t, therefore, surprising when panic engulfed Ugandans especially the urban dwellers when there was an announcement that charcoal had been banned in Uganda ostensibly to protect the environment. Social media went gaga. Parliament swiftly stepped in and advised the government to give it a week by presenting its comprehensive plan. Charcoal is a byproduct of trees and many have been felled to make it. Truckloads of it used to dominate certain routes to urban areas. Many roadside kiosk owners survived by vending charcoal. We have just experienced a severe drought in Uganda and I believe that many people won’t have food to eat in a few months. I perfectly understand why government wants to ban it. As somebody who isn’t a fan of it, I have no tears to shed to be honest. But that would be selfish. The majority of households can’t afford the alternatives — electricity and gas or even briquettes. Beyond price, both forms of energy also have distribution limitations in Uganda. Liquefied petroleum gas in Uganda is largely sold in cylinders of 6kgs and 12kgs. If you don’t have a cylinder, the startup cost is approximately Shs170,000 for 6kgs and Shs266,000 for a 12kg. The median monthly income in Uganda is Shs200,000! What makes charcoal the preferred choice by at least many urban households is because with Shs1,000, one can get a palmful of it which they can use to cook something. Many of our people don’t earn a predictable regular income. They wake up, go to work (if they find it) and are paid per a day or work done. Once they get that money, they can buy some charcoal of Shs1,000 and some maize flour or a few fingers of Matooke and prepare the day’s meal. They can’t afford to spend more than their monthly income on the gas equipment. There was a time government distributed some gas cylinders freely. I believe that at Shs60,000 for a 6kg and Shs112,000 for a 12kg for a refill respectively, the majority of our people can’t afford it. Gas cylinders even if distributed for free will most likely end up as decorative materials. What then can be done? Government must or support the private sector to make gas cylinders of 1kg or 2kg which means that the majority of households can afford to refill at Shs10,000 for a 1kg or Shs20,000 for a 2kg or even lower. That is why manufacturers of consumer goods like sugar or cooking oil don’t sell only 25kgs or 5 litres respectively. They sell in small quantities that the majority can afford. Our people buy sugar by spoonful, diapers by a piece, eat beans but ask the restaurant to add in meat soup (because they can’t afford meat). They can only afford gas by a kilo or a half not 6 or 12kgs. The writer is a communications and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

November 3, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Medical apprenticeship programs critical in improving diagnosis and treatment

By Denis Jjuuko You probably know somebody who after trying many healthcare facilities, they were told there was nothing wrong with them and they should go back home. The symptoms persisted though and the more facilities they visited, the more they were told the same. Sometimes they were given painkillers to psychologically manage them. Desperate, they visited a traditional healer whose Thursday clinic deep in the village is thronged by many people who share similar experiences. The healer is basking in glory. He saved so and so; his marketing team disguising themselves as waiting clients assure them. After a few months of some relief, the pain comes back and this time more excruciating. But since they tried everything and failed, they give up and wait to die. And indeed, they die. At their funeral, we claim that it was God’s plan! Well, if you don’t know anyone who has gone through that, at least you heard of King Oyo’s story. The now deceased Tooro Kingdom leader visited some high-end hospitals in Kampala after feeling persistent backpain. X-rays, MRI scans later, they told him they saw nothing. Being a person of means, he flew to a hospital in Nairobi where he was diagnosed with cancer. A year later he was dead. What did the people in Nairobi saw that the Kampala ones couldn’t? Well, Nairobi has a PET Scan or a few. Kampala and the whole of Uganda don’t. A PET Scan costs about US$3m or approximately 17 Landcruisers. If there was a meeting of government officials, you would run out of space to park them. That is how many we have in Uganda but a PET Scan is not something we have been able to buy and install yet. But it isn’t just the lack of technology that is a problem. You can have a PET Scan and still fail to diagnose a patient properly. Patients aren’t sent for a PET Scan on their first visit to a clinic as it is rarely used as a diagnostic test rather one that determines an extent of the disease. Other tests have to be done. And still a diagnosis can be missed depending on who has done the scan or X-ray and the reading of the results. If for example a child has a bone tumor, a pediatric radiologist would probably pick up the first signs that an adult radiologist may easily miss. Even then, the doctors who ordered the tests and other specialists can sit as a group and discuss what they are seeing. They may even disagree. After that, they could order for a biopsy and eventually a PET Scan if it is needed. You see, that means that you need to have a team of specialists with not only adequate training but also experience that exposed them to a diverse spectrum of patient diseases and how to diagnose them. If you only train in Uganda and practice in Uganda for a year or two, it is most likely you won’t be able to diagnose many diseases even with advanced technologies at your disposal. Doctors in Europe struggle to diagnose and even treat malaria, which is many times chicken feed to Ugandan doctors. When did your doctor last consult anyone before prescribing drugs? Most likely he or she listened to you, sent you to the lab, looked at the results and sent you to the pharmacy or told you to go back home. Isn’t that likely to lead to a wrong diagnosis? I am not saying that a team needs to look at each and every case but you get the drift. To have good doctors in Uganda, there is a need for a robust apprenticeship program so that the graduate doctors can learn from as many experts as possible. When we spend years discussing intern doctors’ wages, it means we are delaying their learning. They aren’t getting the right exposure from the seniors. And if they aren’t properly apprenticed, they will not become good doctors. There is no two ways about it. We also need to have a critical number of health workers sent elsewhere for exposure. They should learn how medicine is practiced elsewhere while getting exposed to different diseases and treatment methods. Government should be talking for example to American hospitals for medical residency. We could send some to Aga Khan in Nairobi as well. Those who are sent by government, they should be contracted and incentivized to come back to work here. The right technology and generally good working conditions should be in place. Upon return, they should train others through apprenticeships. They should spend a certain number of hours a week for a few years in public hospitals with the list of young doctors they have mentored as part of their deliverables. Ensure that those trained doctors remain in hospital wards too. This is actually cheaper than sending politically connected patients abroad for treatment because Uganda can only send so many. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

October 26, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Uber’s abrupt exit calls for regulation of international brands to protect users

By Denis Jjuuko Ten years ago, Kampala was all the rage. Uber, the global taxi hailing app launched in Kampala with fanfare. The razzmatazz that comes with a global brand that promises to change the world. All our transport problems, at least in Kampala, would be sorted. It was cool to order a Uber or arrive at a fancy party in one. If you hadn’t installed the app, you were being left behind. There was no need to buy a car. Uber would sort that at the fraction of the cost. If you had a car, it was so cool to use it as a Uber on your way to or from work. And if you didn’t like your boss, you could quit your job and become your own boss as a Uber driver. It wouldn’t get any fancy than that. Some people cashed out their savings, bought a few corollas, got their cousins who had previously graduated from university and made them Uber drivers. Side hustle had never been so simple. Special hire drivers cried. Calls placed to their previous customers went unanswered. The suitor had a new lover. You were exploitative. Uber transported someone to wherever they wanted at the cost of a chapati! Some young people decided to create Uber for all sorts of things. Looking for somebody to wash your clothes over the weekend, a “uber” was created for that. Need a truck to transport something? There was a “uber” for it. Need a boda? Well, another “uber” was created before Uber itself introduced bodas. Innovation hubs were full of ideas with young people dressed in hoodies spending all their time trying to create the next Uber. To be fair, it wasn’t just in Uganda. Every new innovation has somebody trying to replicate it for another industry. With apps like Uber and AirBnB and their early global success, other platforms for gig work or sharing were created everywhere. UpWork, Fiverr, DoorDash… the list is endless. We were told the sharing economy was the new thing. That we didn’t need to own stuff. We could easily share. The problem though with international brands like Uber is that they can wake up and make a decision that affects many people. Like they did when they announced that they will no longer be available in Uganda. And within a few minutes, they were gone. They didn’t even have the courtesy to inform the drivers signed up on their app for at least a week. I believe some were even still processing the news and maybe even parked at malls waiting for clients only to realize that the application had gone mute. I believe those who hadn’t checked their communications platforms restarted their phones several times. Developing economies like Uganda shouldn’t just allow these brands to come in, do and go as they wish. They can’t just be making abrupt decisions from Silicon Valley. Why couldn’t Uber give time before exiting the country? They could have given a 90-day notice so that their drivers and customers have enough time to prepare. To operate here, the government should force them to follow some rules and regulations. Usually when they start offering service in smaller economies like ours, there is something they want which isn’t direct revenue. It is global presence that enables them to have an explosive initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange or attract some funding. Once they achieve those goals, their mission is over and can do whatever they want especially where there is no regulation. In markets where they are regulated, they can’t just wake up and announce that they have closed. Also, the actions of brands like Uber mean that there is a need to identify our challenges and find applicable solutions. For many years, I wonder whether Uber drivers made any money. The rates were so low prompting many of them to try to negotiate out of the app. What had made Uber appealing to drivers was the near guarantee of a return trip. Unlike a special hire (cab), the driver would be able to find a customer after dropping off somebody. That increasingly became difficult yet the rates remained low. When fuel prices went up, Uber didn’t respond appropriately. Apparently, increments had to follow some policy created based on the American or western European economy. Bad roads and traffic jams were never factored in. Ugandans largely drive old cars which means that they consume a lot of fuel and susceptible to breakdowns. If the roads are potholed, maintenance and repair become costly. An unregulated global brand wouldn’t care much about that while setting rates especially when they don’t own the asset that guarantees their return (25% of each trip in the case of Uber). Regulation of global brands is critical in protecting the interests of users. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

October 26, 2026