Rakai boy mints gold in the UK

Richard Mbogga is the managing director of SIGNWARE, a design and fabrication business in the UK. He is also the managing director of Meden Systems International, which focuses on computer software research and development and the managing director of Traffic Light Systems Company, all based in London. The latter, alone, is worth over sh6.5b, with projected revenues of sh10.2b by 2018. But his success is a far cry from the boy who worked at construction sites to raise school fees while studying in Rakai in the 1980s. He told ELVIS BASUDDE about his transformation.

 Who is Richard Mbogga?

I hold a bachelor of arts in education degree from Greenwich University, London and a diploma in education from Nkozi National Teachers’ Training College. I am married to Eva Mbogga and we are blessed with three children — Denis, Dobrin and Davis.

Background I was born in Kampala in November 1975 at Namirembe Hospital to Muyimbwa Nsumba and Christine Namukasa. My mother has since passed on. My father has six children. I am the second-born of my mother and my father’s fourth child.

My father was a driver for the archbishops of the province of the Church of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire, starting with Jonan Luwum to Silvanus Wani. He later retired and became a plumber.

Misfortune splits his family

My family split up when I was still young. In 1982, while playing in Namirembe, I stumbled on a radiolike device, which I took home to play with. For five days, I tried to get some sound out of it, but failed. I thought it had no speakers.

One weekend, I took it to our neighbours to test it with their speakers. It blew off and all I can remember is deep needle-like pins piercing my back as I fell down. The toy I had been playing with was a bomb. It went off, killing four members of our neighbour’s family.

 There was a lot of insecurity in the country at the time. Unfortunately, my father had long been linked with the National Resistance Army rebels in Luwero.

His past links with Archbishop Janan Luwum and the fact that a notable family member had tried to assassinate the then president, Milton Obote, years did not help the situation. My father was arrested for alleged illegal possession of ammunition and links with the NRA rebels.

He was released after six months and went into exile in Kenya. Soon after my father’s disappearance, Uganda National Liberation Army soldiers raided our home, ransacked it, beat up and detained my mother at Basiima House in Mengo, Kampala, for days.
 

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The Mbogga family with Katikkiro Charles Mayiga during his recent visit to London

After my mother’s release, she took me and my elder sister to our grandmother in Mengo and that was the last time we saw her.

She disappeared with our younger sister to Bukomero in Kiboga district, where she died during the war. Relocating to Kalisizo Fearing for our lives and her own family, my grandmother chose to take me and my sister to our other grandmother in Kalisizo, Masaka.

She thought since we were less known in the area, our security was guaranteed. In 1981, we were enrolled at Matale Primary School in Kalisizo, where I sat Primary Leaving Examinations in 1988.

I was admitted at the Sacred Heart College, Kiteredde, where I studied up to Senior Six. Kiteredde is a preparatory school for Bannakalori Brothers located in Rakai district. We saw our father again after President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986.

The hardship under which I grew opened my eyes. During holidays, we would fetch water for residents at a fee. We used the money to buy books and to supplement our school fees. Raising school fees was a big challenge.

I spent a lot of time away from school, doing odd jobs in Kampala to raise fees. I mainly worked on construction sites.

First taste of business

At the end of Senior Five (S.5), I did not have money to pay school fees. I took a year out of school to look for fees. I was good at fine art. So, I set up a printing business to design and print school badges and make signposts.

My work won me contracts to do the graphics for Rakai AIDS Information Network, an AIDS research project in Kalisizo. With help from an aunt, Dr. Margaret Jjuuko, I went back to school.

In 1996, I joined Nkozi National Teachers’ Training College for a two-year diploma in education course. I used my savings from the printing business to pay for my studies.

Mbogga struggles to make a buck in London

While teaching at Kiteredde, in Rakai, I often made artworks, which I sold during school holidays. One weekend, while at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel, where I had gone to showcase my work to the managers, there was a speaker from the London School of Computing giving a talk at an education seminar.

I sat and listened to the talk. It was long, but interesting. I realised I could also have a chance to study abroad. I made my application to go for further studies in London, even though I did not have all the money required for the three-year course. In 2000, I enrolled at Greenwich University in London, for a bachelor of arts in Education degree. My aunt, Zaina Bulyaba, paid for my air ticket.

While studying, I painted and sold my works to hotels in London to raise tuition. I also chanced to get a job with a computer software design company as a software and graphics designer.

 Job loss turns into a blessing

In 2006, the company I was working for wound up. I was paid £1,200 (about sh5.3m) in redundancy pay and about £3,000 (about sh13.2m) as bonus from my employers.
 

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Some of the products that Mbogga makes on display in London. His clients include Her Majesty the Queen’s royal guards

Losing a job was my turning point in life. Rather than mourn the loss, I moved on. I used the redundancy money and my personal savings to start my business, SIGNWARE. It specialised in design and fabrication business.

 Starting to invest and later manufacture road safety systems, was not by choice, but rather circumstantial.

I was tired of reading about people dying in road accidents in Uganda. In 2001, while on a visit to Uganda, I witnessed a car hit and kill a child at Kajjansi on Entebbe Road.

The following day, I went to Kajjansi Police Post to see if anything could have been done to save the life of the child. To my surprise, a Police officer told me the force did not have adequate manpower to man the traffic on the road and that many accidents had occurred on the same spot.

To me, a single death was one too many and I was not going to stand by and just watch. I needed to do something about it.

When I got back to London, I thought of controlled pedestrian crossings as an answer to the problem. When I got back to work, I tasked my team to look into the possibility of buying a pedestrian traffic light so we could donate it for one of the black spots.

Unfortunately, the ­ findings painted a di‑ cult situation. A fully-installed pelican crossing in the UK, plus the cost of electricity every day and night cost £30,000 (sh132m). The price was prohibitive for the systems to be deployed in some other countries.

Fast forward to 2006. The money I was paid was put aside to rent the premises in London for my new business, but it was not enough to see me through the ­ first six months of rent, considering the tax I had to pay.

However, I had cleverly taken out a salary loan of £20,000 (sh88m) from the bank (guaranteed by my employer) at the beginning of my employment because I knew it would have been di‑ cult later to get a loan without security. I used the money to buy a large format printer.

The rest of the money had gone into stocking the materials I needed to start the business. I paid the bank £30,000 (sh132m) back over a period of three years. I hated the repayments; they made me work my head office.

I went and re-negotiated with the bank and paid them back within that year so I could move on. I started making road safety systems with two staff members, but by the end of the year, the business was struggling so much that I could not keep them on the job.

I let them go in order to avoid sinking the business. The next year, I worked alone and saved £40,000 (sh176m) that I could have spent on salaries. I worked three times harder, starting at 9.00am till 10.00pm.

On some days, I left office at midnight. To reduce the workload, I bought more machines to do work that would have been done by people.

My company was the ­ first business in London to design and manufacture LED signs. By 2008, I had established a strong base for the business, with a large client base. Currently, I own one of the most well-equipped specialized design and manufacturing businesses in London, mainly doing graphics.

We provide services in highway road signs to vehicle branding and other types of printing. Some of our clients are town councils, Her Majesty the Queen’s royal guards, embassies, education institutions, contractors and local businesses. We now employ four staff.
 

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Traffic lights

The breakthrough

After research, we developed traffic lights that were tailored to the needs of the African situation. They use radio waves to communicate to other lights in the set, which means there is no need to dig the roads to lay any data or electric cables.

When pedestrians want to cross the road, they press a button and wait for the signal. The lights then stop the vehicles and people are able to cross safely. Installation can be done within hours. The system runs on solar.

An onboard audio warning device is installed as standard on all our systems with a pedestrian crossing option to alert the road users while crossing. A sound is made to the pedestrians to start crossing and the sound will change towards the end of each crossing, making the system friendly to children, the elderly and the disabled.

The traffic lights reduce operating and maintenance costs with a 90% reduction in power consumption. The systems will soon be manufactured in Uganda.

What makes him tick

I am hardworking and innovative. I do not like shoddy work. If a job is being done, it has to come out as planned. I do not like excuses at work and I do not believe in impossibilities — when I set out to do something, I do not want to hear someone say it is impossible.

I hate the word ‘impossible’ because it is used as an excuse by incompetent individuals. I also believe God gave us a brain to solve problems around us, but some of us use our brains to create problems, so I cannot stand people who do not want to use their brains correctly.

Rolling out the products

Our initial market was local (our immediate neighbourhood in London) based on individual needs. Then it expanded to other areas in London.

Today, it is a fully functional electronic manufacturing company that makes bespoke electronics, from mobile power supplies to data relay devices. Last year, we developed, designed and manufactured a high spec solar-powered, traffic light system that can be deployed and used anywhere in the world.

This was one of the happiest moments of my life, despite the cost at which the system was achieved. From a pedestrian crossing traffic signal, we designed and manufactured a robust traffic computer signal that made it possible for us to control even the most complex of junctions as well as making road speed control devices.

With our latest innovations, Africa is becoming our biggest market. We are already in Somalia and Nigeria.

In Uganda, if the Government expresses interest, we shall not hesitate to supply them. We are willing to offer large discounts to the Ugandan market. We have already contacted Government officials in charge of transport about our services.

Traffic lights are priced according to the design and the junction where they will be installed. Some junctions require more signals than others.

For example, the signals and controllers needed to sort out the mess at Kabuusu junction in Kampala would not be the same needed to get the traffic moving at Kibuye junction. However, I should say, our lights start from sh60m for an installed set.

Challenges and opportunities

Challenges will always be there, but I think they should always serve as a learning point. It is the challenges that have made me what I am today. One must develop a thick skin to do business in the UK, let alone make a living out of it.
 

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Mbogga displays one of his products

I started running my business in 2006 because I thought I could not be able to compete for jobs, given my ethnic minority background. This was purely my belief and that is why I went into self-employment.

Working long hours is challenging. It puts a strain on my life and family, but I could not give up. This is the way to go in the UK. I had no business background or training, so in the ­ first months of my business, I improvised to stay in the business.

The pressure to produce results became my obsession. In my early years of business, I trusted people and I extended credit facilities without looking into their credit score. As a result, I lost a lot of money and that hindered my ability to grow as fast as had planned.

Most of what we use in Uganda is imported and I have been trying to break that habit by buying machinery for those who have no access to Europe. I hope one day, we shall manufacture the machines locally.

There is an unfortunate thinking in Uganda that investors must have a particular skin colour and if you are black and not well-known, you are assumed a crook. I was given an appointment on phone, but when I turned up at the office, I was asked where my boss was.

Opportunities for young entrepreneurs Africa is the next biggest market in the world. Investing in manufacturing is the way to go if we are to match China. The Government has to focus on the future, encourage young investors and entrepreneurs and offer them grants to put their plans into real businesses.

What others say

trueRonald Matovu Yiga, resident of Sseguku on Entebbe Road

Mbogga is extremely hardworking and he sees beyond where others see. He is always looking forward to making a positive change in the community.

He is exceptionally creative and innovative. He is someone who will propose an idea that you think is unachievable and in the long run, he achieves it.


trueJohn Paul Ssenyondo, resident of Ntinda

I have worked with Mbogga in London. In the UK, working hours start at 9:00am and end at 5:00pm. But Mbogga would be in offi ce by 8.00am up to beyond midnight. Whatever Mbogga starts, he always accomplishes.

He does not like negative people. He believes that everything is possible. Connie Nalugwa, radio presenter Mbogga is an intelligent man. But most importantly, he is a no-nonsense person. He is a kind person, with a big heart.

He lives in London, but always listens to the radio where I work, particularly my programme.