Jinja can rise and shine again. ABASOGA BE CHALLENGED

. In the recent months have stayed several nights in Jinja and I normally take a walk in the morning as the sun rises it has given me the opportunity to see different parts of the town and its then you realise Jinja is a shadow of its past but I know and I believe that its possible to make Jinja rise and shine again. The then mighty Jinja was East Africa’s industrial town and Uganda’s second largest town. Jinja continues to be an industrial town but not at the level it was then. Today Jinja is deserted, dirty looking with a village developing inside the city. It is not uncommon to see charcoal stoves around the corner on most streets. This is not very different from the old cities like Mbale, Soroti, Gulu. Jinja is a relic of its past. If you visit other towns you see some improvements. Under the government town rehabilitation programmes, some roads in major towns have been repaired, Jinja has had only Kampala road repaired! Jinja still has some industries probably it is the second largest industrial town in Uganda but clearly there are towns that are better looking and possibly slightly bigger than Jinja. If the Kakira sugar works is added to what exists in Jinja and its immediate surroundings Jinja would continue to be Uganda’s second largest town. Unfortunately Jinja appears not to have received the local investment that has been seen in many other towns including Mbarara, Gulu and Kabale among others. Taking a walk in Jinja, and having known it as a clean town, one is taken back by the state of despair of roads and buildings and the mud that is everywhere in the town. There are iconic buildings and places in Jinja that bring tears to your eyes The infamous Rippon Falls hotel, the Jinja Municipal Council building, especially the hall, the Jinja District Administration buildings, the banks wherever they are located and of course many more buildings that define Jinja. It’s not good to be proud about the past without figuring out what the future should be. This is probably the challenge Jinja has. There’s a false hope that industry will return to Jinja, the old Jinja is dead! The new one must emerge. Abasoga this is food on the table. Jinja has a million possibilities, all it requires is imagination and good leadership to figure out a future and of course the necessary political support from Jinja, from the Busoga area and at national level. Jinja’s location is its biggest advantage, Jinja is located at the Source of the Nile. There is no other town in the world located so! Jinja is located on the shores of Lake Victoria, Jinja is located on the highway between Nairobi and Kampala, Jinja is located in an area where the Madhvanis call home, Jinja is located by a River that has falls and rapids, all these are factors that make Jinja an ideal business center compared to many other towns in Uganda. This gives Jinja a competitive advantage over many other towns in the country. This should be awake up call for the residents of Jinja and Abasoga. One could therefore sell Jinja as a tourist capital of Uganda! Tourists coming to Uganda come for various reasons. Some come to visit the national parks but I believe many of them would want to see the source of the mighty Nile. I have been amazed at how people are keen to tour the sugar cane plantations, tea plantations, look at the coffee plant, look at the jack fruit tree among other agricultural products. All these are within the possibilities of being shown in Jinja. Using tourism as a stepping stone Jinja can also position itself as Uganda’s cultural capital. This is just an imagination that can become true. What does it require to market culture? A theater where traditional dance is performed regularly, the Ndere Troupe type, a centre where Uganda’s different cultures as exhibited! It is possible this can happen in Jinja. Jinja can position itself as an education hub, like culture it could take advantage of being a little centrally located in Uganda away and yet near Kampala, historically multi ethnic city and those other factors that would make Jinja a credible attraction. The low economic activity in Jinja has put off the industrial giant Madhvani from investing in the town. In fact the Madhvanis appear not to have been nurtured to encourage them to put more money in Jinja, I guess the Madhvanis would be the key persons on Jinja’s investment round table, they have ideas, money and experience in business. Jinja has a potential to be Kampala’s residential backyard. With a highway between Jinja and Kampala completed, the travel time can be reduced to an hour or less. I guess on a busy day the residents of Mukono town take more than an hour just to get to Kampala or even get out. With the River Nile, Jinja could host a large number of residents along the river banks this could decongest Kampala and would boost Jinja’s chances of improved economic activity. Kampala is increasingly becoming a big slum, the residential areas of Nakaseero, Kololo, Bugolobi are increasingly becoming office space. Blocks of flats have come up everywhere killing the privacy these residencies once had. The country can regain descent well planned high income residential areas only if Jinja had the foresight to do it.  But then Jinja has its limitations, the first one is a physical one; on the west is river, the south is a lake and a little drive to the east is the Madhvani sugar plantations. Physically therefore Jinja can only move to the north along the river. If there’s no plan to realise this, Jinja too, will become a big slum in the years ahead. The second limitation is leadership. With due respect to present leadership the current political system delivers popular political leaders who cannot do much for fear of not being voted again. Those with vision fail to execute their vision because they fear not being re-elected. In many districts and towns over the country, leaders look for what they can take away as personal benefits and fail to deliver value to the constituencies. It is known that large number of the elected individuals do not do anything that will jeopardise their chances of being re-elected. We all know what is going on in districts and municipalities. That is not for discussion here, the stories are endless. The other constraint Jinja has is political bickering among politicians, this is common country wide but we have something to look to to take leadership, Obwa Kyabazinga Bwa Busoga. We have an institution to galvanise us. I appeal to the Isebantu to cause a meeting of Busoga’s best, we do not have the time to waste. We must address the issues of development to compliment the effort of government Kyabazinga afuvuwe.