Strange resting hours for Kikuubo 'busy bees'

PIC: The busy corridors of Kikuubo. (Credit: Titus Kakembo)

BUSINESS

KAMPALA - True to the old adage, too much work without play makes Jack a dull boy, too much business without a break makes the Kikuubo business fraternity dull people.

Consequently, telephone or physically call any of them between 1:00pm -2:00pm and expect the line to be off.

"They are having a deserved nap," says Semanda Kiddu, one of the traders.

"This is because they spend the entire day enticing buyers to take their products, reminding clients to pay up old bills or sweet talking the land lord to give them grace period to pay rent."

"Today ask for anything, pay and it will be delivered in Kikubbo," says the Chairman Kikuubo Business Community (KBC) chairman, Mohamed Kitimbo.

Commission agents with nose to sniff, the spoor to make a fortune, on full alert will take you where to get: suit cases, suits, perfumes, foot wear and dance costumes from China, Britain or France.

How some of the 30,000 dealers in there earn, out of the transactions, is not your business.

Kikubo has steadily progressed since 1986 and is now endowed with monetary institutions, foreign exchange bureaus, retail, liquor stores, wholesale and retail shops; but most of all, lodges.

High rise structures have mushroomed in this nook stretching right up to Ben Kiwanuka Street, Bus za Baganda Bus Park and Kyadondo Road.

Talk has it that, if you dropped a mobile phone while there, it would never find its way to the ground.

 Most people walk on a floor they have never seen. Human traffic and trucks snake their way in and out to deliver or take away goods.

Labourers punctuate the din with squeals of "Fasi! Fasi! " (space) as they saunter with beads of sweat matting their fore heads. 

Kikuubo dates back to the post-colonial times as a warehouse hub for wholesales down town. But, during the Idi Amin "Economic War" (1970s) the area was converted into a business centre.

A Magendo (black market) hub then for scarce essential commodities comprising: soap, sugar, beer and you name it. 

After Amin's fall the Kibanda Boys (money changers) because foreign exchange was hard to get, took the reigns.

Buyers talked to say they have to walk there with their hands firmly holding their possessions or risk losing them.

'Fasi Fasi,' squealing labourers are known to vanish in the nameless nooks with goods. Other regular customers of Kikuubo say, when it comes to a price war, nobody beats the nook.

"But nobody knows where most shop attendants vanish to between 1:00am and 2:00pm."