The Rise and Fall of Pioneer Bus.

Over 20 years back, Uganda government got compensation from its neighbor Kenya for the EAC assets. Uganda lost when the EAC broke up in 1977. The present Kenya airways with all the routes were the famous East African airways. There were many other such assets which Uganda lost as a result of the breakup. As good neighbors, Kenya agreed to compensate Uganda. You know Uganda is Kenya’s largest market. Kenya gets edgy if Uganda gets angry. But it is never worried because there is nothing Uganda can do for the time being to out compete Kenya. Uganda got over 100 buses and they were given to people’s transport, the Jinja based Government Company and Ugandan Support Company and the Kampala based company. After a few years, the buses were no longer on the road and the companies wound up. Nobody knows why but it could be attributed to government, management or market failure. I suppose it was a management problem. The problem with all parastatals in Kampala and government enterprises is management failure. There is the story pioneer bus launching a bus company with about 100 buses mass transport market. All I know about pioneer is what I have read in press but I gather they got a loan of USD 10m to import 100buses. The costs consisted of an estimate of USD 5.5 million including freight. When the buses arrived they were Godsent, UTODA was about to strike and this private company and government want on to solve problems allowing them to operate before paying taxes on the buses and without number plates( government failure). In less than a year, pioneer was dead. They had failed to pay (management failure) the original tax when they imported the buses to the URA despite the easy payment plan that government negotiated for them (government failure). The stories you hear are that there was no system of managing the finances. I am not sure whether this was correct but if they collected the money and failed to pay it, then it would be correct. The other stories were about who was managing, influence of relatives and at the end of the day the company had to collapse. Questions. If this investment was owned by government, would it have survived? If this investment was owned by some Indian or Chinese investor, would it have survived? What would be the survival tactics? Why are Ugandan owned businesses failing to succeed?