Has Mbale town gone to the dogs?
Uganda’s grey-haired generation still remember with nostalgia the days when Mbale district had a productive industrial sector, well planned infrastructure and a booming coffee industry.
By Frederick Womakuyu and Richard Wetaya
Uganda’s grey-haired generation still remember with nostalgia the days when Mbale district had a productive industrial sector, well planned infrastructure and a booming coffee industry.
Those were the days when Mbale gained the reputation of the cleanest town in East Africa. The late President Milton Obote referred to it as ‘The Jewel of East Africa’.
The Mbale Rotary Club called it the town with the best architecturally designed streets.
According to Mbale historians, the town was developed along a low ridge running from east to west at the foothills of Mt. Nkokonjeru, currently known as Wanale Hill.
Visible from all parts of the town with its picturesque cliffs, cascading water falls and green cultivated slopes, the Wanale hill supplemnts the town’s allure.
An elder, Moses Wamindi, says Mbale’s beginnings can be traced to an ivory tusks gathering site. This site had numerous rocks locally called Mabale in Lugusi. From Mabale, the district derived its name, Mbale (meaning stones).
“This rock was situated next to the headquarters of Semei Kakungulu, a Muganda and colonial agent of the British Protectorate Government,†Wamindi adds. With the support of the British, Kakungulu transformed Mbale into a commercial and metropolitan town.
Wamindi notes that the indispensable enterprises especially the African Textile Mill boasted of market in Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, DR Congo and Zambia boasted the growth of the town.
“All these industries oiled the running of Mbale town. They maintained roads, electricity and the water system,†he adds. “Mbale depended on them for survival and their collapse meant a collapse for Mbale town too,†says Wamindi.
The lucrative coffee trade led to the establishment of one of East Africa’s premier and pioneer coffee trading unions, the Bugisu Cooperative Union in 1954.
“When the union took root and made progress, Mbale was inundated with many coffee businessmen eager to stand a treat of the flourishing trade. It quickly evolved into a coffee business melting pot for coffee traders from north, central, eastern, western Uganda and southern Sudan,†Wamindi says.
Many indigenous coffee traders and farmers became wealthy as a result of the town’s booming and organised coffee, hides and skins, ivory and cotton trade.
As a collection centre for tusks, hides and skins from northern and eastern Uganda in the early 1960s, Mbale reportedly sent over sh20m worth of animal products to the Mombassa port for export.
The earlier economic flood tide Mbale basked in before the dawn of the 1960s heralded a new chapter in the town’s commercial life by the end of 1903.
By the middle of 1904, about 230 Indians had established businesses and put up structures that can still be found within the town’s vicinity.
The times of prosperity did a good turn to Mbale and by 1906, Mbale was elevated to a township district, with a boundary running in a circle of two miles radius from the set up to cater for the town’s interests. It obtained a municipality status in 1963.
But that was then. Things have changed today. Today, the metropolis of Mbale looks different from what it was in the mid 1960s.
Neither the industries nor the planned infrastructure exist any more. The industries stopped working long ago; everything about Mbale is deplorable.
Poverty, statistics from the district indicate, stands at 51 per cent compared to a national average of 31 percent. Academic standards are at an all time. In last year’s Primary Leaving Examinations results, the district had a failure rate of 23 percent compared to the national rate of 9 percent.
Bigname schools like Masaba sss, Mbale sss and Nabumali High School are no longer academic powerhouses in the region. The failure rate at O’level stood at 28 percent compared to a national average of 9 percent.
A grey haired elder in Busamaga parish, Hamidu Makhafu, says there is nothing Mbale can take pride in now. “This town is like a bere garden. Our roads are mediocre and the industrial sector is gone – our historical legacy has gone down the drain.â€
But What could have gone wrong?
Makhafu explains that at the climax of Mbale’s greatness when it was to be transformed into a city by Obote, an insurgency plagued the country “and everything was thrown into the dustbin. Many of the close associates of Obote from Mbale like Dan Nabudere went into exile and the people left behind couldn’t maintain the town.â€
He adds Mbale enjoyed a significantly good trade and manufacturing spells and a wide taxation base that crumbled when a five-year war hit Uganda.
At the time, Mbale had vibrant industries like the African Textile Mill, cotton ginneries, oil mills, maize mills, carpentry workshops, a plant producing motor vehicle silencers and many other engineering firms.
Despite this, all is not doom about Mbale today. Emerging factories like Elgon Millers and Ntake Bakery, have added some adorn to what used to be a flourishing industrial area.
However, many residents, think the new industries operating under modern-day market forces will not benefit them like the old ones. The African Textile Mill, for instance, employed over 4,000 indigenous people, which cannot be matched by any of the new industries.
Town mayor Jamila Naleba says despite the decline, Mbale still reamins the regional administrative, banking, shopping and marketing centre for eastern Uganda.
Uganda’s grey-haired generation still remember with nostalgia the days when Mbale district had a productive industrial sector, well planned infrastructure and a booming coffee industry.
Those were the days when Mbale gained the reputation of the cleanest town in East Africa. The late President Milton Obote referred to it as ‘The Jewel of East Africa’.
The Mbale Rotary Club called it the town with the best architecturally designed streets.
According to Mbale historians, the town was developed along a low ridge running from east to west at the foothills of Mt. Nkokonjeru, currently known as Wanale Hill.
Visible from all parts of the town with its picturesque cliffs, cascading water falls and green cultivated slopes, the Wanale hill supplemnts the town’s allure.
An elder, Moses Wamindi, says Mbale’s beginnings can be traced to an ivory tusks gathering site. This site had numerous rocks locally called Mabale in Lugusi. From Mabale, the district derived its name, Mbale (meaning stones).
“This rock was situated next to the headquarters of Semei Kakungulu, a Muganda and colonial agent of the British Protectorate Government,†Wamindi adds. With the support of the British, Kakungulu transformed Mbale into a commercial and metropolitan town.
Wamindi notes that the indispensable enterprises especially the African Textile Mill boasted of market in Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, DR Congo and Zambia boasted the growth of the town.
“All these industries oiled the running of Mbale town. They maintained roads, electricity and the water system,†he adds. “Mbale depended on them for survival and their collapse meant a collapse for Mbale town too,†says Wamindi.
The lucrative coffee trade led to the establishment of one of East Africa’s premier and pioneer coffee trading unions, the Bugisu Cooperative Union in 1954.
“When the union took root and made progress, Mbale was inundated with many coffee businessmen eager to stand a treat of the flourishing trade. It quickly evolved into a coffee business melting pot for coffee traders from north, central, eastern, western Uganda and southern Sudan,†Wamindi says.
Many indigenous coffee traders and farmers became wealthy as a result of the town’s booming and organised coffee, hides and skins, ivory and cotton trade.
As a collection centre for tusks, hides and skins from northern and eastern Uganda in the early 1960s, Mbale reportedly sent over sh20m worth of animal products to the Mombassa port for export.
The earlier economic flood tide Mbale basked in before the dawn of the 1960s heralded a new chapter in the town’s commercial life by the end of 1903.
By the middle of 1904, about 230 Indians had established businesses and put up structures that can still be found within the town’s vicinity.
The times of prosperity did a good turn to Mbale and by 1906, Mbale was elevated to a township district, with a boundary running in a circle of two miles radius from the set up to cater for the town’s interests. It obtained a municipality status in 1963.
But that was then. Things have changed today. Today, the metropolis of Mbale looks different from what it was in the mid 1960s.
Neither the industries nor the planned infrastructure exist any more. The industries stopped working long ago; everything about Mbale is deplorable.
Poverty, statistics from the district indicate, stands at 51 per cent compared to a national average of 31 percent. Academic standards are at an all time. In last year’s Primary Leaving Examinations results, the district had a failure rate of 23 percent compared to the national rate of 9 percent.
Bigname schools like Masaba sss, Mbale sss and Nabumali High School are no longer academic powerhouses in the region. The failure rate at O’level stood at 28 percent compared to a national average of 9 percent.
A grey haired elder in Busamaga parish, Hamidu Makhafu, says there is nothing Mbale can take pride in now. “This town is like a bere garden. Our roads are mediocre and the industrial sector is gone – our historical legacy has gone down the drain.â€
But What could have gone wrong?
Makhafu explains that at the climax of Mbale’s greatness when it was to be transformed into a city by Obote, an insurgency plagued the country “and everything was thrown into the dustbin. Many of the close associates of Obote from Mbale like Dan Nabudere went into exile and the people left behind couldn’t maintain the town.â€
He adds Mbale enjoyed a significantly good trade and manufacturing spells and a wide taxation base that crumbled when a five-year war hit Uganda.
At the time, Mbale had vibrant industries like the African Textile Mill, cotton ginneries, oil mills, maize mills, carpentry workshops, a plant producing motor vehicle silencers and many other engineering firms.
Despite this, all is not doom about Mbale today. Emerging factories like Elgon Millers and Ntake Bakery, have added some adorn to what used to be a flourishing industrial area.
However, many residents, think the new industries operating under modern-day market forces will not benefit them like the old ones. The African Textile Mill, for instance, employed over 4,000 indigenous people, which cannot be matched by any of the new industries.
Town mayor Jamila Naleba says despite the decline, Mbale still reamins the regional administrative, banking, shopping and marketing centre for eastern Uganda.