north America – Prime Time Communications

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Canadian visas and what Africans must do to avoid humiliating rejection

By Denis Jjuuko I recently applied for a visa to Canada to attend a Rotary conference in Calgary and thereafter visit a few of their attractions like the Niagara Falls and return to Kampala. The application was rejected on grounds that I didn’t have enough assets and therefore I might not return. I thought that the visa officer had missed something, so I appealed and I attached some more assets. I thought no sane person would have such assets, get a visa to Canada, fly for 2-3 days, reach an airport and then disappear into mountains of snow! But the Canadian visa officer sent back my application rejected with the same reason. I believe they never read anything I attached. I don’t know anyone entrepreneurial like myself who would spend nearly Shs10m on an economy class air ticket to Calgary and then decide to disappear into thin air instead of returning home. I am also too old, lazy and highly educated to directly wash cars, clean airport bathrooms and such other menial demeaning jobs the majority of people who disappear in Canada do to survive. Some of my friends urged me to appeal again. I refused. I am not desperate to fly for a few days to Calgary or anywhere in north America, western Europe or anywhere anyway. I thought I could invest the money I would have spent in Canada on starting a new business venture whose profits could pay for the next Rotary convention in Taipei in 2026 or even donate it to charity. I actually donated some of it last week. Anyway, I hadn’t realized that I had become a statistic until I read a recent story by CNN that Africans lost nearly US$70m in 2024 in denied visas. That is a lot of money. If the US$70m is the annual average, in just a decade, the continent has lost US$700m. If you think of the interest that could have earned when compounded, it is in billions of dollars. Since the release of that report, many Africans have taken to social media platforms such as X to argue that the continent should become reciprocal. Charge westerners same rates they charge us and then give flimsy reasons to deny them access after all many that travel to Africa have no real assets to talk about. The argument is popular but lacks thorough thought. African countries actually are as discriminatory only that they do so to fellow Africans. Many people from the west can fly to any airport and access a visa on arrival with zero chance of rejection. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, says in a popular TikTok video that he needs 35 visas to cover the continent while most Europeans don’t need any. Why doesn’t the African Union copy the European Union and ensure that there is no need for visas to travel anywhere in Africa by a citizen of any member state? That would spur a lot of growth when Africa becomes borderless like Europe is. Also, why do Africans go to the west? It is because we have failed to put in place facilities and create jobs that we need here. With all the coastline we have, why would anyone fly to resorts in Europe, America or the Middle East? Africans fly there because there is nothing at home to write about. We can sing about lions and gorillas but we can’t even build an airfield where planes could easily land. Ssese Islands or Buvuma can be as beautiful as Bali or Ibiza or Santorini. But the infrastructure is lacking. That is why even when the visas are nearly free for Americans and Europeans, Africa still struggles to attract tourists. You don’t want to fly into Entebbe and then drive on the Mityana-Kyenjojo section of the road to catch the elusive lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Hotels are too expensive and poorly done. You can spend a night in a European resort paying only EUR160 or less inclusive of an endless flow of meals, beers, champagnes and whiskeys. Here? Somebody charges US$1,000 a night for a hotel room with a floor made of uneven stone slates! Our universities still teach stuff that one can easily find online and hospitals are in a mess. Can we host international conferences like the one I had wanted to attend in Canada? Only a handful of countries in Africa can. But African countries have money for the shiniest military hardware and rigged elections. No ministers fail to get the latest Landcruiser to go launch a pit latrine built with funds from western donors. We must build the kind of countries that we love to see otherwise Canadians and other westerners will continue rejecting us without any care in the world. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

June 23, 2025

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