Domestic trade practices

When on a flight from Entebbe to Dar es Salaam, aboard Air Uganda, we were served: Yogurt from Jesa Farm, Wavah bottled water, pastries, tea, coffee, fruit juices and fresh fruits, all products made, grown and supplied by Ugandan owned companies. It was a proud Ugandan moment for me.

I was on a flight from Entebbe to Dar es Salaam, aboard Air Uganda. We were served: yogurt from Jesa Farm, Wavah bottled water, pastries, tea, coffee, fruit juices and fresh fruits; all products made, grown and supplied by Ugandan owned companies. It was a proud Ugandan moment for me.

Sadly, Air Uganda is since grounded, seemingly on grounds which could have been avoided.

My trip to Dar es Salaam was for a meeting with other leaders from within the East Africa Region. At the meeting, during a health break, one of the leaders, a successful Ugandan business woman, Maria Odido, the Chief Executive Officer of Bee Natural Uganda, shared her philosophy on import and export trade.

It is like a mother who prepares a sumptuous meal, serves the best part of the food into her best serving dishes, wraps it up nicely, takes it and gives it to the neighbours; and then returns home to serve her children the cold leftovers.
Maria Odido

According to Maria, this is what she will not do with her products – her honey is first for the Ugandan market and then when there is extra she will export it to East Africa, Africa and then outside Africa.

Admittedly, Government has made some effort to support Ugandan small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, it has done so selectively and piecemeal, within a framework that encourages the SMEs primarily to focus on producing for export as opposed to improving on their product quality and distribution within the Uganda market.

So, in my neighborhood of Bugolobi it is easier to find Nescafe coffee than it is Good African coffee. I supposed it does not help the mindsets of Ugandans which perceive imported goods and or foreign owned businesses superior does not help.

You go to the supermarket (an outlet of a foreign owned and based transnational corporation) just to buy a kilo of rotten meat and those chicken drumsticks that test like nothing nearer to the aroma of that local bird. Yet, there are whole chickens in Nakawa Market and numerous butchers that give you the liberty of pointing to the specific section of the cow. Modernity at a stupid level.
Facebooker

Food for thought indeed!