Growing up in Jinja town, it had ceased to be the industrial town of East Africa primarily because economic activities had come to a halt because of Idi Amin except for a few additions in town. Jinja is where it was in 1971. Somebody on the internet described jinja as a medieval US western town/ 1960s Pakistan Indian town/ Vietnam Bombay town but this is the former industrial town of Uganda. At one time, Uganda’s second largest town, I bet it is no longer is but one of Uganda’s leading town definitely. You do not want to blame anybody for how this town looks like except yourself. I mean you, me and the rest of Ugandans. Recently a visit to Mbale showed me building that are similar to this one. Possibly this is worse. This is characteristic of many buildings in Uganda and what does it tell about us. It tells you a story about Uganda, Ugandans, our business values, work ethic our maintenance culture and all these things. Let me say the following; 1. Not much has changed in Jinja town since the 1970s. Even after the 20 year growth in the economy of an average of 5% per year, this growth has not manifested itself in many towns, Mbale and Jinja inclusive. 2. The second story tells you about Ugandans that we are unable to create wealth or if we do, we create it in the wrong directions. The suburbs of Jinja are full of beautiful houses by people who work in these towns. Why have we chosen to build residential houses and not the businesses houses that create more value. It means our business model is flawed. Our savings go to non-productive investments. Loom at the other pictures about Jinja town. This hasn’t changed much for the last 30 to 40 years. 3. With buildings like this, at least we should maintain them unfortunately we do not. There are hundreds of buildings in Jinja with 10 times the number of people who are supposed to sleep in them and go unmaintained. What is the problem? This is a problem throughout the country of most buildings especially those that belong to the government. 4. It is unfortunate that we wait for government to do stuff for us. We blame government for anything and everything. The role of government is to provide an enabling atmosphere for people to succeed. But unfortunately we want government to give us everything. Definitely this is not possible. I hope the people of Busoga can take note, get up and do something.
