Europe – Prime Time Communications

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Favourable interest rates are good for everyone, not just government blueprint for politicians and entrepreneurs building churches

#OutToLunch: A blueprint for politicians and entrepreneurs building churches By Denis Jjuuko When it comes to religion, many times politicians, billionaire entrepreneurs, the middle class and other classes agree. At least on building magnificent houses of God. Across Uganda, many people have contributed or even single handedly built these houses of God. Fancy to a fault, majestically standing on hills with spires that compete with those seen in Hollywood movies. Many of these worship centres, particularly those single handedly built by one person or a family with their friends, are usually located in rural areas where the funders were born, walked barefoot to school before migrating to Kampala to find fortune and fame. The floors are of Italian or Spanish marble, porcelain or at worst polished terrazzo. Stained glasses with the beautiful image of the Virgin Mary complete the curvy life size windows. The pews are of the hardest wood. The world’s best sound engineers come in to install the public address system. The house of God must be fancy. Once construction is complete, they call in their Kampala friends for the grand opening. The clergy lines up at the foot of the building to welcome them. The parking lot is full of the most expensive SUVs. The parishioners walk in every prayer day fearful of stepping on the floors, sometimes so shiny that they see their own body reflections. Their best clothes can’t even be used to clean the pews. They can scratch them. For a moment, the poor are in heaven before returning to their houses where floors are screeded with cow dung. There is nothing wrong with people using their fortune and connections to build grand churches or mosques. It is their money; their appreciation of what God has helped them achieve. They no longer have some of these other problems so they can “give back” to God. The problem is whether the grandeur church is what the community really needs. Shouldn’t politicians, the rich and famous first do a needs assessment? Usually, besides the magnificent house of God stands a school with a falling roof or whose walls are being held in place by crooked timber poles. Windows are just wide openings where mild steel frames would do. Inside some of the classrooms, are anthills. Pupils sit on logs and like their homes, the cow dung is the main material used for floor screeding. Teachers look like they last had a decent meal on Christmas day. The health centre is miles away and poorly equipped. The only hope for survival whenever they fall sick is through prayer in the church built for them by the only person who was lucky enough to survive the biting poverty. Yet the funders go to India or Kenya or Germany whenever they feel any discomfort. And are not afraid to give testimony that last time they fell sick, they traveled to Europe for better management and while there, they were thankful to God for their life hence the magnificent church building. Yet the blueprint for an impactful church exists. In most cases wherever the Catholics built a church, they built a school as well and almost everywhere they set up their regional headquarters (read a diocese), they built a functional hospital. They knew that you can’t pastor the dead! They also knew that an educated population is good for them and their beliefs. Some people call it sustainability and perhaps that is why they have existed for millennia. You saw how they put on a show at Pope Francis’ funeral. Why can’t politicians and billionaire businessmen do the same? If you have Shs6 billion (nearly US$2 million) like we heard of the Ssembabule church or the one in Mitooma, why not build a church of Shs2 billion, a school of Shs2 billion and a healthy centre of Shs2 billion? You could also may be build all those with about 70% of the kitty and create an endowment fund with the remaining 30%. The annual interest from the fund could be used to operate the school and the hospital. If 30% of Shs6b is invested say in a long-term treasury bond, it could give a net return of approximately Shs255m per a year or Shs21.3m per a month, enough to subsidize a rural school and health facility. Alternatively, an income generating project could be established alongside the church building. A factory to add value for the parishioners. It could be a dairy plant or a coffee factory depending on the area. A scholarship for the needy bright students could be another alternative. That way people wouldn’t have to meet their creator ahead of time. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

May 27, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Coffee export good but protect farmers by consuming some of it locally

By Denis Jjuuko For a few years, coffee prices have been rising greatly crossing the Shs13,000 per kilo mark for the fair average quality or what is known as kase thereby turning many farmers into millionaires. Some of them instantly. The price of Robusta over the last few months has been almost the same as Arabica that usually grows on higher altitudes. Driving through some villages in Masaka recently, you hardly found a courtyard where coffee was not being dried. And almost everyone dried the coffee on tarpaulins instead of the bare ground of yonder. This obviously means a better-quality product and the fact that people are adhering to the messages being given to them. Farmers are also planting improved varieties and applying better farming methods all of which are leading to an improved end product that is demanded across the world. In the just concluded financial year, Uganda exported 6.13 million bags (60kg each) of coffee earning an unprecedented USD1.144 billion, an increment of 6.33% in volume and 35.29% in revenue compared to the previous year. The higher prices have been attributed to improved quality and quantity but also demand in the destination markets where coffee is consumed. Although there might be other reasons such increased local consumption in larger exporting countries like Brazil and weather fluctuations in Vietnam, and a changing environment in Europe starting in January 2025 leading to stock ups. Europe says it will only be buying coffee which is traced to farms that have not been set up after destroying forests. Most Ugandan coffee farmers are small and do so on small pieces of land and therefore no forests have been destroyed, which means the demand for our coffee in European markets should continue. Although farmers are experiencing the highest prices in 30 years, the vulnerabilities still exist and therefore Uganda’s focus should not be entirely on exports that is targeting the 20m bags annually. Local consumption is equally important. In Ethiopia, Africa’s largest coffee producer, 60% of the harvests are consumed at home. The data may be hard to come up with but imagine how many meetings especially in government ministries, departments and agencies take place on a daily basis. They must be hundreds of them. Many of them have some coffee and tea for the people to enjoy. Many officials in government have flasks of coffee and tea beside their office desks and it is not uncommon to find a few government workers enjoying breakfast or a mid-morning snack complete with a hot cup of beverages. Now, imagine if they all were drinking Ugandan coffee! How much money would the government be spending? How much money would the farmers and roasters be earning? Many times, the coffee people drink is imported instant coffees. At workshops in many hotels, imported instant coffees rule the day sometimes serving hundreds of people attending conferences and workshops. Private companies and development partners are not exceptional. In a country that is a major producer of coffee! I don’t know whether the preference of instant coffees is strategic where we prefer to export raw coffee so we can important instant ones or it is one of those things we have not clearly thought about. Should we consume some of the coffee we grow here or we should focus on exporting it only? There is no guarantee that the current prices will remain as high as they are today and if we only focus on exports, farmers at one stage may become delusional and abandon it like they did years ago. To avoid this risk, there must be ways to promote its consumption locally not through fictious campaigns that teach people how to drink coffee but through a well thought out campaign. A campaign that gets implemented. A campaign that is implemented by people that are trusted. In the central region for example, Buganda Kingdom pushed these boundaries earlier through their Mmwanyi Terimba campaign, distributing seedlings and the Katikkiro making endless drives to the expansive kingdom to see whether the people were growing coffee. The results can be seen by even a suckling baby. Government can start with its offices. Procurement officers, administrators and whoever is responsible for purchasing coffee should be aligned to the fact that charity begins at home. That they can’t be singing value addition while importing something as easy to make as coffee. Then private companies and development partners can be encouraged to go locally roasted coffee. Tax incentives could be given. This doesn’t mean that we abandon the 20 million bags target rather we do both. Improved quality and quantity would ensure that we can go ahead and get nearer to the 20 million bags target while a significant chunk is consumed at home. The writer is communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

August 8, 2024

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch If the youth are lured into homosexuality for financial gain, what about creating real jobs for them?

By Denis Jjuuko A video clip of one of those so-called social media influencers surfaced on Twitter in which he claimed he was being persecuted for being gay. He claimed he was a gay sex worker! The video had the watermark logo of DW— a renowned German news agency. He later claimed that he had been given money by the DW journalists to say whatever he said otherwise he is heterosexual. Before the video went viral over the weekend, he was one of those vocal anti-homosexuality people on Twitter. His claim that he was paid for the video in which he was seen half naked, body smeared with some oil, massaging a fellow man in some dingy room is part of the narrative that homosexuality is being promoted in Uganda. That young people are being paid to be gay by organizations and individuals from western Europe and north America. That was also one of the reasons for the anti-homosexuality bill passed by a united cheering parliament the other day. I don’t know whether there is money to promote homosexuality but let me make the assumption that it is true. That indeed people are being lured into homosexuality in exchange for lots of money and visas to Europe and north America where they could live better lives than here — doing the same jobs they despise here! If that is the case, then the anti-homosexuality crusade is missing a major point — the issue of lack of opportunities for mainly young people which leads to under and unemployment. One of Uganda’s biggest exports today is the externalization of labour to mainly the Arab world where young people go to become domestic workers and do all sort of jobs. At Entebbe airport, most travelers outside of Uganda are young people in abayas and hijabs walking in choreographed formations on their way to the deserts of the middle east. Arab based airliners now send in huge planes and they go back full of passengers on their way to domestic work. The money they are earning isn’t that high but largely better than what they can largely get here. Many wouldn’t want to actually go to become domestic workers but they have not been given a chance at home. When are we going to see parliament in unparalleled bipartisan unity tackling unemployment? When are we going to see our leaders moving from one gathering to another like they are doing now on anti-homosexuality pushing for the creation of real jobs for young people? If people are becoming homosexuals so that they can earn money, then the best way forward to stop them is by creating real jobs for them. But what we usually hear is the condescending of young people for not being job creators by privileged people who have never created any real job. Job creation should never be the responsibility of young people rather that of our leaders. In fact, Ugandans cannot be blamed for lack of trying to create jobs. We are one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world. Many Ugandans have tried to create jobs for at least themselves. From roadside kiosks, boutiques in arcades to the gig economy. Even those with proper jobs have side hustles—selling handbags, perfumes, or owning a kafunda near their residences. But the majority of these businesses don’t celebrate their fifth birthdays. Capital is too expensive; the market is too small and taxations and all sorts of fees are simply too high. Nowadays, there is a government agency that charges for all sorts of things. Look at tourism for example. A trading license, a vehicle license fee, a procurement annual fee, a local government fee if you are hotel on each night somebody spends in the hotel, a tourism operator fee, and all sorts of things in between. At the end of the day, it becomes difficult to survive and thrive. If young people have resorted to homosexuality to earn a living as Ugandan leaders want us to believe, then the easiest thing is to create alternative sources of jobs for them. But how many real jobs are we creating a year as a country? And it is not only jobs that we need to create. Revamping our education is also crucial so that we train people for jobs that are available on the market. Empower people with skills to adjust to emerging technologies (instead of technologies replacing them). The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

June 19, 2023