BUBU: The age of Economic Transformation is here

By Joshua Turyatemba

In one of his recent pieces on a series of articles that examine the East African Community at 20, veteran journalist Onyango Obbo quotes the Kenya Commercial Bank CEO, Joshua Ogiara on his perspective of Uganda, "if it does a few things right, Uganda can feed China."

And that could be no further from the truth. The number of factories being commissioned by President Yoweri Museveni every year is of an unprecedented level in Uganda's history.

But also perhaps unaware of it, Uganda is already feeding China, the only question would be, can Uganda satisfy China's hunger for our products? 

At the Namunkekeera Rural Industrial Research Centre, which is part of the Operation Wealth Creation Ecosystem, Ho and Mu Foods Technology has been exporting tonnes of dried mango snacks to China since its commissioning.

So much that they (Ho and Mu) had not even considered availing their product in Uganda until they exhibited at the Buy Uganda Build Uganda(BUBU) expo last week at Kololo Airstrip. They never tired of the question, "where can we find these snacks in Kampala?"

In my conversation with the company, I advised them not to underestimate the purchasing capacity of our middle class.

In two months they will be on our local supermarket shelves, in addition to bringing in the much-needed forex. 

So why is BUBU so important to Uganda? There are coincidences, but there are also statistics.

In economics, the principle of substitution or is very much at play here. Over the past year, succeeding the official launch of BUBU, we have seen more Ugandan made products on the supermarket shelves than before.

In fact, Uganda was able to overturn the perpetual balance of trade deficit with our major manufacturing neighbor Kenya. From zero export of dairy products 10 years ago to approximately $80m worth of exports by last year.

And this is a market (Kenyan) with an estimated annual growth of 3.5% for dairy products, meaning the future can only be brighter.

However, it is not time for celebration and vacation yet. The magic will ultimately lie in taking lessons from say the dairy exports sector, replicating them at home to other agro-sectors and targeting other countries as well.

However, to do that, there is need to overcome one basic factor, which seemed to permeate throughout most of the low scale products exhibited at the BUBU expo: standardisation.

Interestingly, most of these producers OWC personnel interacted with are aware of the procedures and importance of adhering to and obtaining a Uganda National Bureau of Standards mark. However, for one reason or another, they just do not have the mark. 

The key observation is that this is a result of procrastination on their part (producers) since they can go ahead and sell their products locally anyway, depending on how well they can explain to the potential buyer unfettered.

The other observation is that UNBS needs to do more to have strategic partnerships that would ensure they are able to have more products standardised without necessarily spending millions of shillings and time on the process.

For instance, a partnership between Uganda Industrial Research Institute, which provides an incubation platform for most of these small scale agro-processors should have been done years ago such that by the time a product is rolled out to the market, a lot of ground will have been covered in enabling its acceptability and trust which can be achieved by the UNBS mark. 

BUBU can also play a big role in ensuring that all the local producers on its roll carry the UNBS mark. For instance, by introducing a BUBU Catalogue, which details all the local producers under the arrangement.

This can be done and availed both electronically for download by potential investors, who may want local partnerships in specific areas, but also in print form and availed at various ministries, governments and agencies.

The requirement for listing would be UNBS certification. Under the able guidance of the formidable Minister of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives, Ameria Kyambadde, there is no doubt this will be achieved.

This will also help in weeding out unscrupulous people who may want to just slap the BUBU logo on their product without any validation and end up messing or causing a lack of trust in an otherwise noble initiative. 

Without doubt, if BUBU continues on this trajectory as a flagship initiative to promote locally made and manufactured goods, the intermittent song of youth unemployment will gradually fade out in the long term.

What we need to focus on every time we pick 10 items off the supermarket shelf, let at least two of those bear the BUBU logo.

OWC on its part continues to engage, encourage and enable people and co-operatives that aim to create a difference at household level by enhancing their incomes through agro-enterprise.  

The writer works with Operation Wealth Creation.