Investors investigated?
May 12, 2006
UGANDA’S No1 COLUMNIST.. INFORMED, CONTROVERSIAL AND PROVOCATIVE<br><br><b>John Nagenda</b><br><br>Your very occasionally timorous columnist loves investors like the next person. The more so if they are bona fide, and it turns out to be a win-win situation for Uganda and themselves. Recent his
UGANDA’S No1 COLUMNIST.. INFORMED, CONTROVERSIAL AND PROVOCATIVE
John Nagenda
Your very occasionally timorous columnist loves investors like the next person. The more so if they are bona fide, and it turns out to be a win-win situation for Uganda and themselves. Recent history unfortunately shows that thus far this is the exception rather than the rule.
There are plenty of reasons for this, but important among them is the laxity we bring to the bargaining table. If bargaining takes place, which many times it does not. The result is that all and sundry “see us comingâ€, as the phrase goes. And it is a crying shame, because, if we but knew it, we own a heap of goodies to offer.
What is the matter with us; why are we so rarely in the driving seat in our own vehicle? I could weary you with a long list of answers but suffice to say that the Hungry Monster of Corruption is as usual sitting balefully in the dark corner when the visitors come to call. Sitting, that is, if Monster didn’t introduce them in the first place. In which case he/she will be all over the place, flashing empty smiles, face aglow with anticipation of dollars ringing in foreign accounts.
All this, cross my heart and hope to die, has nothing to do with the Sudanese brothers who have “acquired†land at Nakasero to construct a tall hotel, with a stunning reputed figure of US$90m, Uganda Shillings 1,642,500,000,000,000. That’s a goodly sum in any language. If it arrives, and may we live to see the day, it will prove to be a massive shot in the arm for our economy, as well as our reputation.
But cautious son of the soil that I am I want to plug as many holes as is humanly possible to make sure that none of the promises made in hot blood seeps away. That the loot gushes in as near as possible to the dizzying figure above. That given the short time frame to the CHOGM meeting in November next year, should the brothers realise that the hotel won’t be ready on time, they don’t just pull up sticks and go home. That the land obtained, home of the ministry of information (and before that the European(!) hospital) will not be permitted a user-change in the middle of the project. And so on. But there remains the worrisome fact that guests on the higher floors, none of them checked-out, will be able to look down into the Nakasero State House at their leisure and plot God knows what!
Remember the poorly-built Okello House in this connection? It costs huge amounts each month just to be used as a presidential office, and hopefully keep strangers out. I am scratching my head. Scratching my head, too, on a couple of points I will share with you on the wildlife golf courses. Yawn, yawn, you might groan! The much-touted golf course in the Kruger Park in South Africa never made a profit. It is likely it will be relocated outside the Park, to hopefully make a profit based on golf in the traditional way. On the course at the peninsula in Mweya, does anyone share minister Daudi Migereko’s view that this will so titillate our dear Queen that she will even step on the place, much less play a round with her host, President Y. K. Museveni? Dream on DM!
***************
I happily acknowledge, in the light of what follows, that I am a director of British American Tobacco, Uganda. You might have heard of a coming young man by name of Phillip Karugaba. His dad is the young soldier from Sandhurst who hoisted the Ugandan flag at independence. His mum is the feted star owner of Nina Interiors.
Master Phillip is a lawyer. His main claim to fame, in the media, is that his bugbear is tobacco and those involved in manufacturing it. Many and thunderous are the letters to the press that Karugaba has penned, couched in the deadly prose of the preacherman — deadly in that, like chloroform, an overdose can send you to death via sleep. Humour is deeply unknown to this species.
In Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, the ancient, who “stoppeth one in three†might have been a later Phillip, in this case haranguing passerbys against the dreaded weed. Fair enough, if that’s your “bagâ€, as we used to say in the Permissive Sixties. But sit back and listen to this.
There is in the smoky tobacco world a company called Mastermind. Rightly or wrongly some view it as, shall we say, on the maverick side. Companies with the Mastermind name exist in Kenya, Uganda and Congo, to go from East to West. Currently they are not, strictly speaking, in single ownership. But their style is not dissimilar as they cross boundaries.
Recently a long vehicle carrying numberless ciggies, bound for Congo, crossed into Uganda. With fine timing and no doubt keen information, the Uganda Revenue Authority law enforcers pounced and held it. Rumour has it there are those who would have sworn in Court that a charge of counterfeit could have been laid against the excise stamps carried on the cigarette packets, both for Congo and Uganda. Mastermind’s lawyers wrote a very strong note to the URA, protesting the seizure of the vehicle and its cigarette cargo. URA relented and released both.
The name of the law firm is MMAKS. The K stands for Phillip Karugaba, LLM (Cantab). Could this be the selfsame bane of the tobacco industry? Over to you, Phillip!
John Nagenda
Your very occasionally timorous columnist loves investors like the next person. The more so if they are bona fide, and it turns out to be a win-win situation for Uganda and themselves. Recent history unfortunately shows that thus far this is the exception rather than the rule.
There are plenty of reasons for this, but important among them is the laxity we bring to the bargaining table. If bargaining takes place, which many times it does not. The result is that all and sundry “see us comingâ€, as the phrase goes. And it is a crying shame, because, if we but knew it, we own a heap of goodies to offer.
What is the matter with us; why are we so rarely in the driving seat in our own vehicle? I could weary you with a long list of answers but suffice to say that the Hungry Monster of Corruption is as usual sitting balefully in the dark corner when the visitors come to call. Sitting, that is, if Monster didn’t introduce them in the first place. In which case he/she will be all over the place, flashing empty smiles, face aglow with anticipation of dollars ringing in foreign accounts.
All this, cross my heart and hope to die, has nothing to do with the Sudanese brothers who have “acquired†land at Nakasero to construct a tall hotel, with a stunning reputed figure of US$90m, Uganda Shillings 1,642,500,000,000,000. That’s a goodly sum in any language. If it arrives, and may we live to see the day, it will prove to be a massive shot in the arm for our economy, as well as our reputation.
But cautious son of the soil that I am I want to plug as many holes as is humanly possible to make sure that none of the promises made in hot blood seeps away. That the loot gushes in as near as possible to the dizzying figure above. That given the short time frame to the CHOGM meeting in November next year, should the brothers realise that the hotel won’t be ready on time, they don’t just pull up sticks and go home. That the land obtained, home of the ministry of information (and before that the European(!) hospital) will not be permitted a user-change in the middle of the project. And so on. But there remains the worrisome fact that guests on the higher floors, none of them checked-out, will be able to look down into the Nakasero State House at their leisure and plot God knows what!
Remember the poorly-built Okello House in this connection? It costs huge amounts each month just to be used as a presidential office, and hopefully keep strangers out. I am scratching my head. Scratching my head, too, on a couple of points I will share with you on the wildlife golf courses. Yawn, yawn, you might groan! The much-touted golf course in the Kruger Park in South Africa never made a profit. It is likely it will be relocated outside the Park, to hopefully make a profit based on golf in the traditional way. On the course at the peninsula in Mweya, does anyone share minister Daudi Migereko’s view that this will so titillate our dear Queen that she will even step on the place, much less play a round with her host, President Y. K. Museveni? Dream on DM!
***************
I happily acknowledge, in the light of what follows, that I am a director of British American Tobacco, Uganda. You might have heard of a coming young man by name of Phillip Karugaba. His dad is the young soldier from Sandhurst who hoisted the Ugandan flag at independence. His mum is the feted star owner of Nina Interiors.
Master Phillip is a lawyer. His main claim to fame, in the media, is that his bugbear is tobacco and those involved in manufacturing it. Many and thunderous are the letters to the press that Karugaba has penned, couched in the deadly prose of the preacherman — deadly in that, like chloroform, an overdose can send you to death via sleep. Humour is deeply unknown to this species.
In Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, the ancient, who “stoppeth one in three†might have been a later Phillip, in this case haranguing passerbys against the dreaded weed. Fair enough, if that’s your “bagâ€, as we used to say in the Permissive Sixties. But sit back and listen to this.
There is in the smoky tobacco world a company called Mastermind. Rightly or wrongly some view it as, shall we say, on the maverick side. Companies with the Mastermind name exist in Kenya, Uganda and Congo, to go from East to West. Currently they are not, strictly speaking, in single ownership. But their style is not dissimilar as they cross boundaries.
Recently a long vehicle carrying numberless ciggies, bound for Congo, crossed into Uganda. With fine timing and no doubt keen information, the Uganda Revenue Authority law enforcers pounced and held it. Rumour has it there are those who would have sworn in Court that a charge of counterfeit could have been laid against the excise stamps carried on the cigarette packets, both for Congo and Uganda. Mastermind’s lawyers wrote a very strong note to the URA, protesting the seizure of the vehicle and its cigarette cargo. URA relented and released both.
The name of the law firm is MMAKS. The K stands for Phillip Karugaba, LLM (Cantab). Could this be the selfsame bane of the tobacco industry? Over to you, Phillip!