Celebrating Ugandan Women Entrepreneurs: Prudence Ukkonika

Hardworking, innovative, risk taking and opportunity seeking are features that define Prudence Ukkonika and this is what entrepreneurship is about. Prudence was speaking at the MUBS Entrepreneurship Centre event organized to mark the job entrepreneurship week. Prudence has an interesting story as she used her fees to buy old clothes and take them to Kampala. Her father who was also an entrepreneur had given her the money to pay tuition fees at the college in Kampala.

The buses to Kampala used to leave at 4am and you would get to Kampala after two days. The roads were very bad and there were insecurity so the buses would stop over on the way. Prudence had been to a college in Kampala and she realized there were no old clothes in Kampala at least in the places she visited so she decided to buy them from Kabale and bring them to Kampala. However that day, luck was not on her side, the bus did not take off and she went back home. Being a business man, her father wanted to use the money for something that day and he asked her to give it back to him. The father was furious and thought Prudence was actually not studying. Prudence got cash in Kampala when she finally travelled and used the money to buy groundnuts which she fried herself and gave to the boys who were on a ship to Kalangala. She had seen another opportunity and still took risk. She fried groundnuts herself and wrapped them in old newspapers and gave them to the boys on the ship to Kalangala. She did not want the money back, she requested them to buy pineapples from the island which she sold in Nakawa market. Prudence has a very interesting story and tells it in “a no holds barred” manner.

Her risk taking nerve led her to putting a Charcoal sigiri in her car boot to take it to work so that she can give her customers hot food. She says she did not think a lot about it. The petrol tank is near the area of the boot and she dared to out the sigiri in the boot. Prudence’s story is one of the surprises and good decisions when concept belonged to her deceased son who had started bringing locally made wine to Kampala from Northern Uganda. She exploited the idea and used to sell the wines in jerricans, plastic bottles but now labels her wine, Bella Wine like any other international wine. She said the name Bella meant Belief Leads to Lasting Achievement. She indeed believed and she now sells her wine not only in Uganda but Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya.

I cannot say, Prudence is soft spoken but she is articulate and raw. She is a tough lady who does not tolerate mediocrity. She works closely with employees but it is tough when they make mistakes. She amazed people when she said she doesn’t want to beg when she can do things herself. She was appreciative of President Museveni’s support but the bureaucracy of reaching him and the feeling by many people in the process that they are doing her a favour made her not follow up those promises.