Kalangala’s Potential to Economically Transform

I visit Kalangala about once a year and all the time I see a slumbering economic giant of island that nobody has woken up to get. The potential in Kalangala is immeasurable. What it lacks is leadership that sees this potential and the resultant policy that will make Kalangala an economic power house. The picture right now is that of a miserable island and indeed it is quite miserable.  The only buildings to talk about is the new administration building, the hotels (or whatever names you want to call them) that are coming up and the BIDCO buildings. The rest of the buildings on the island tell you there is no individual with economic power sufficient to change the economic history of the island.

If you get into Kalangala town, which I should rightly call a trading Centre, what you see replicates literally what is elsewhere in the country. The most outstanding signs are MTN, Airtel, Coca-cola, the beer brands as the key economic activities that the trading centre boosts on. Of course there are also the local accommodation facilities, the eating places, and the roadside chapatti. Another visible business is that of old clothes. This is a typical scenery in most of Uganda’s trading Centre. Of course this is spiced up by bit of government offices and NGOs. Different government offices are always present and a variety of NGOs who are out there to help Africa transform.

BIDCO a Malaysian company introduced the palm growing project that has been controversial from the time of conception. BIDCO has planted over 6,000 acres of palm trees and is producing oil from a factory in Jinja. To be able to grow these palms, BIDCO had to clear a forest. This was a very controversial decision and was criticized by environmentalists, opposition parties and those who felt this project should not succeed.

BIDCO introduced an out growers scheme and on average, a farmer with an acre of land may collect possibly shs. 6 million a year compared to other types of employment in Uganda, this could be worthwhile. But of course this presents itself as an area fertile for research. Out growers therefore have some potential to earn some bit of money as a result of the BIDCO project. With good negotiations, improved productivity, it is possible that the farmer in Kalangala may actually be better off than farmers elsewhere and even get a higher price. Of course this is where government effort through incentives and infrastructure becomes important to improve the fortunes of the people on the island. BIDCO has capacity to change life at the island with selected investments in roads, schools, health centres but of course nobody in BIDCO will do that without request from government. I guess every business has a right to run its business and maximize its profit from it.

BIDCO which started in 2002 is said to be one of Uganda’s largest single foreign direct investment, has cost the investors over USD 150 million. It is intended to bring to the country wealth while at the same time saving the country dollars using to import oil. This project on island could substantially improve lives of people in these parts of the country.

Fishing is the other economic activity in Kalangala which could also change people’s lives and change the face of Kalalngala. Unfortunately much of the fishing in Uganda especially by ordinary Africans is not business oriented. Many fishermen are content with a few kilos of fish every day and never have sufficient volume to make them business people known to supply fish. Most of the commercial fish got on the island of in the Lake Victoria is by foreigners. These local fishermen also indulge in to poor fishing habits like using wrong size nets which cuts small fish jeopardizing future fishing activity or use an orthodox means to fish. It was reported sometime back that some unscrupulous fishermen were using some kind of poison to catch fish. However fish is an economic activity that in away has little effort by the fishermen. They do not have to grow he fish, the fish is in the lake. But it appears that fishing on the island will never make the breakthrough for ordinary people as would have been expected. Government has built two fish processing plants using borrowed funds and five years later these plants have never been used. People prefer to use the ordinary landing site with poor facilities to process their fish. In any case, there volumes are so small, they do not need an organized place to process their fish. Nonetheless, fishing has potential to transform the lives of the islanders.

The last form of economic activity that will see Kalangala change is tourist. Kalalngala has all sorts of beaches and is a magical island that attracts some tourists though they are still in small numbers. What is required is some government support in terms of marketing and popularizing tourism, some descent facilities that will attract high quality tourists and tourist activities that encourage.

The combination of these three create potential for Kalangala to rise above other areas in Uganda and have its GDP growing at over 75% per year. But this will not happen without good plans and good leaders. This will not happen without support from the central government. This will not happen without visionary islanders who see the value of the different economic aspects available on the island. The presence of MTN, Warid, Airtel and the presence of the soft drinks company is based on a small income that the islanders have through fishing and the small amount of tourism in the country. I don’t think Kalangala has any agriculture of volumes worth mentioning. Measures to get rid of poverty are in place, it is up to the people to advantage if they see the opportunity to do so.