Customer Service.

I traveled to Jinja on Thursday night. I was with a group of people, travelling about 9pm. You do not expect much traffic however there was still traffic in the Bweyogerere and Mukono areas. These days it is a night mare to drive on many of Uganda's roads. If you are up in the air, you may mistake cars in the traffic jam for cars that have packed somewhere. I hope our engineers can get us out of this mess and if they don't do so soon it will only grow us. I don't know what is worse than a night mare but an interesting thing was when we decided to have dinner at some restaurant in Jinja that opens late. We have eaten there before and the food isn't that great but for a traveler in our conditions, it serves the purpose. This time we got a shock of our lives. After taking our order, the waiter comes and says "omugagga agambye temujja kulila wanno, tetujja kubawa mmere okujako nga you take away" we were shocked of course and since I like obeying silly rules I stood up to go. One tough person in our group confronted the "omugagga" and we were finally allowed to eat. I forgot to say that the waiter said we were going to indulge in drinking beer and not wanting to go away. Imagine someone making these allegations? And I think in the group, I had possibly none of them enjoy beer very much. The service was so miserable, the food was terrible. I remembered my customer service rules, one which said "when you are mistreated, do not shout or kick, just do not go back" I hope the owners of this restaurant where i have eaten before several times can improve their customer service.

KIPROTICH: The rising star

Like any other Ugandan I am proud of Kiprotich for bringing us the Gold but for me that’s where the Gold story ends. There are several issues in Kiprotich’s story. 1) He comes from a very humble background one without privileges a

nd the lesson is, whatever background, there is a combination of a winning formula. 2) In this competitive world, still the people with the power, the money, the knowledge, the resources, do have a winning formula. The world’s most powerful nation the USA has the largest number of medals. This tells you about their preparedness. 3) Preparation for anything that you do. In the USA, today those that want to pick up the Gold in the next Olympics have started preparing themselves. I will not be surprised if Uganda’s medal seekers prepare 3 months to the events time. Why is it so? I think it’s our attention to detail as a nation, our desire to win and this reflects through all our other activities including ownership and management of risks. Those that prepare win. 4)What do we want as Ugandans? Is it true that there were more of officials than the sports people themselves? Is it true that the sports people earned less allowance than the officials? it’s a shame if they did but not surprising. Some time back I did earn more than the vice chancellor of Makerere and he went out to complain. He had no reason to complain because I created the money. For Uganda to look for the respect and the sporting power we must start now, identify the talent, prepare well and we will seek Gold.
I must congratulate Team Uganda especially my friend Dorcus, Its unfortunate that during the competition the winner takes it all. But for the competition to take place there must be other people who constitute it. It’s like an election in politics. We congratulate Team Uganda for representing us and having the courage to reach that level. I am very proud of you all.

COFFEE AND POVERTY IN UGANDA

Growing up in my village in Iganga, we may have had about 6 acres of coffee and during the seasons possibly over 10 acres of cotton. What I remember in the villages then especially during the cotton which used to be in December holidays was that there was activity in every home. People picked coffee, hand processed it and took to the ginnery. During those times, many families that didn’t have people into paid jobs and they celebrated the receipt of incomes by purchasing radios, bicycles, iron sheets and all. The coffee and cotton plantations were well tendered. As I speak now, the coffee in our home is largely gone. We have built up some of the areas, some of the coffee is in the bush and I am told that one of the maids in the home plucks the coffee and sells it for her benefit. Last weekend I was in Butambala district and I paid special attention to the state of coffee which was the gold to the African family. What I saw what is not very different in my own home compound and in the shambas of many other Ugandans. Coffee is in the bush unattended to. The Daily monitor of June 20th on the Business page reported that for the month of May there was a 13.5% drop in volume and 17.5 drop in value of coffee exported compared to the same time in the previous year. One MP from Busoga had told me that coffee production had declined 70% in the Busoga region. Remember the population has since doubled. It doesn’t take rocket science to explain a fact that people are poorer than they were before. The dominator, the population has more than doubled and the numerator, the coffee production has declined. I can’t say by how much in aggregate figures. In addressing poverty we must address production as a first item, we must have something to produce and then we must address poverty which is the competitiveness of what we produce. If production has gone down, what do we need to do to improve it? This will give incomes to the ordinarily people on a hard tested product that has demand. The Monitor report said Uganda will miss out on the proceeds from the coffee boom. I do not support government interference in markets other than regulation however I would now support a subsidy to the coffee industry. Crazy isn’t it? But it’s crazy enough to put incomes on the tables of the ordinarily people. We should boost production of poor people and productivity through education, implements and these SACCOs that people are slowly getting into. See a story in the New Vision of August 7, 2012 by one Bonny Kayondo on how to empower subsistence farmers.