Skip to main content

THE MUKWANO I KNEW


We have lost the greatest Ugandan entrepreneur of our time, Mr Amirali Karmali, more popularly known as Mzee Mukwano.

I have known Mzee Mukwano for more than 40 years and most of what I am today is due to him. And I am not alone.

"He has helped countless people through school – as he did me. Helped countless more in business – as he did me. And he has been a steadfast friend and source of support to countless more – as he was to me....

I first met Mukwano around about 1977. My mother was the secretary for the chief of operations at Uganda Airlines, a man I knew only as Hamid. Mukwano had come to charter the Uganda Airlines’ Hercules plane and I happened to be around the office then.

He was a short man, an unassuming man, but clearly a serious businessman who would charter the plane to bring in goods that were in high demand here.

He run a popular whole sale shop in Nakasero – Egesa Commercial Agencies, a beehive of activity and the go-to place for anything and everything at the time.

I was just out of O-Level at that time. He encouraged me to study hard and that he would pay my fees in the UK when I passed my A-level.

Meanwhile I was hustling the best I could to put food on the table for my family, having lost my father a few years before. Between school and trying to make a living I bumped into Mzee Mukwano often and saw how he run his business at close quarters. We had numerous conversations about business and life.

Before he went into trade he was a truck driver, ferrying cargo from Mombasa to Uganda and on to Congo, Rwanda and Sudan. I think he knew every road and had many stories to tell about his adventures driving up and down the region.

When Amin expelled the Asians he stayed around, not only survived but thrived as trader. He spoke fluent Rutooro, Luganda and Swahili, that was the edge that set him apart in business, and probably kept him safe during those hairy days, where it was not advisable to be a success. An Asian success at that.

He had a red Mitsubishi for a long time, which he drove himself around in.

I eventually completed my A-Level and was admitted to Makerere University to do B.Com. I reminded Mzee Mukwano about his promise and he gave me the greenlight to apply to a university of my choice. With the postal service then, correspondence between the universities of my choice and myself took forever. It was not until a year into my course at Makerere that Mukwano gave me £10,000 in cash as my tuition to go and study.

That was barely enough for a year at the London School of Economics where I wanted to go, but was more than enough to see me though a two year course at the London School of Accountancy.
When I returned, I went to visit him with what I thought were good gifts to express my gratitude for what he had done for me. Right before my eyes he distributed the gifts among his workers. He said I owed him nothing and that he was glad I was able to make my way in the UK.

He was at the time about to open his factory. I asked whether I could be of assistance. He put me in charge of cash collections with the warning that I should not get involved in any corrupt dealings. 

There was a shortage of soap and cooking oil at the time and some people would get allocation chits sell them at a premium and make money that way. As a result the grateful buyers would often live sizable tips which we would log as part of the sales.

I reported a surplus one day – that we had earned more than we had sold and Mzee Mukwano was not amused, he insisted that the books must balance. That was the end of the tips.

After four months Mzee Mukwanao decided I was wasted in the cash office, that I should break out on my own. A cigarette smoker all the time I knew him, he got the silver foil from a cigarette packet and on the back of it, instructed a business partner in Dubai to give me $20,000 and sent me on my way.

This was 1988. I had wangled a deal with DHL to supply them with calculators, the 14-digit ones because of our currency issues. I made my way to Dubai and found the business partner, a textiles merchant. He refused to give me cash and forced $20,000 worth of textiles on me.

I called Mzee Mukwano to complain, his advice, “If you want calculators and the man gives you textiles, sell the textiles and buy the calculators.” With my brand new accountancy credentials this had not occurred to me.

"Never in a hurry. He was rarely, if ever fazed. External appearances meant nothing to him. His humility grew the wealthier he became...

Since 1995 he ceded control of the flagship Mukwano Industries to his son and went off to build another fortune as a tea exporter, with tea estates in the west and unrivalled trucking operation. He monitored this from Kampala, though the urban legend was that he had relocated to Fort Portal.
He was my model for his humility, his wisdom, his steadfastness and his compassion.

Mzee Mukwano was 80 and I – he referred to me as Mutabani, shared in only a small part of his life. His visible wealth is only a fraction of his numerous achievements as mentor and sponsor of the many out there like myself.

Two days ago Mzee Mukwano summoned Attorney General William Byaruhanga and I to see him. He sensed the end was near. We bid him farewell.

Rest in Peace Mzee.





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRADUATION, ITS NOW TIME TO WORK….

Thousands of students will be graduating from their respective universities in coming days and months. Makerere, our country’s oldest university will kick off its ceremonies on January 15th and the other universities will follow. The graduates have already had a taste of the real life, having finished their studies mid last year and tried to get employed. Many know by now that the world can be harsh and unforgiving. I hope many are tightening their belts in readiness for the struggle ahead. Some may have decided to kick the tin down the road by continuing with school. And others may have given up altogether. My prayer is that there are more of the first and less of the last kind. In talking to young people, I find that what is needed is a reorientation of their minds – a mindset change. Let me share with you certain facts to help manage their expectations of the world and how they can fulfil their potential in our context. First of all, the world owes you ...
Post a Comment
Read more

HOW TO RECOGNISE A PONZI AND NOT FALL VICTIM

Another Ponzi scheme has come crashing down around the ears of hundreds of “investors”. Unsurprisingly. In its recent reincarnation poor Ugandans were lured into a scheme where they bought computer tablets. This entitled them to a monthly pay off, $100, and a Christmas bonus for their children. In this case the unsuspecting investors -cum -victims were being given a share certificate. Meaning you accept to take the part of the risk in this project. Which was inadvertently reducing their burden of risk and liability for the issuing company. I leave that area to smart lawyers to handle.   As is always the case with these things, it’s not quite clear where the pay-out will come from. A common characteristic of these schemes is that you might get initial payments before you starting missing a few and the stories begin. The promoters of these schemes or scams often use the money from the latest entrants to pay the older “investors” until one of two things happen. Either...
Post a Comment
Read more

LOCAL CONTENT IS NOT A DONE DEAL, WE NEED TO DO MORE

This year’s “Oil & Gas Convention & Regional Logistics Expo2017” has just concluded after three days of discussion, exploration and soul searching. First oil in Uganda is expected by 2020 and this Expo among other efforts are targeted at getting our local businessmen ready to take advantage of this historical development. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the discovery and eventual exploitation of our oil resource is one of those once in a generation events, that can transform this nation, not only on a macro level but also in our individual lives. For starters at least $20b will be spent over the next three years in infrastructure development and other things that will ensure we are ready to pipe and refine our oil. During the exploration phase about $3b was spent by the international oil companies, with on three in every ten dollars being retained here. That was an exploration phase and one hopes that we have learnt enough from that period to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

OUR HISTORICAL SITES SHOULD NOT GO UNATTENDED TO

Recently I was at Makerere University to attend a wedding ceremony. I hadn’t been on the university’s grounds in a while. I was shocked at how run down Mary Stuart and Lumumba Halls were. They are in need of serious work. These thoughts were reawakened with the recent launch of the coffee table book “Beyond the Reeds and Bricks” promoted by the tourism ministry, the cross cultural foundation of Uganda and the European Union Delegation. The book which is aimed at the protection of historical sites and buildings in Kampala, Entebbe and Jinja, is a moving collection of pictures of buildings and sites we know, but probably take for granted when we pass them as we go about our business. "Entebe za Mugula in Entebbe, Mackay’s Cave, the post office in Entebbe, the Stanbic Bank Branch in Jinja, Hamu Mukasa’s house in Mengo, the main building at Makerere , the Bahai Temple, Kibuli mosque and many other sites have pride of place among the 60 pictures in this book, which is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

COME HELP BEAT BACK HIV/AIDS

Uganda has made tremendous strides in containing the AIDS pandemic. For some of us who were around in the 1980s and saw the worst effects of the AIDS pandemic, the way the country has contained the disease is not what we had envisaged back then. Ignorance, stigma and lack of drugs surrounding the disease saw thousands die horrible deaths – wasting away, tortured by opportunistic diseases and being shirked by family and a society out fear.  The doomsayers were projecting a major fall in our population, a collapse of the economy and a total breakdown of social cohesion. That the country is still around and fighting back the disease successfully, could not have been envisaged in those scary days of the 1980s when the disease came into the public conscious. Thankfully rather than sweep the problem under the carpet like many of the neighbouring countries, President Yoweri Museveni led a fight back against AIDS that had at its core widespread dissemination of infor...
Post a Comment
Read more

WE NEED FASTER TURN AROUND ON OUR ROAD PROJECTS

During a recent trip to China I was shocked to find properly paved roads and first class infrastructure deep in the countryside, hundreds of kilometres away from the capital, Beijing. I rode the high-speed railway out of Beijing, doing more than 300 kilometres per hour and I can attest I have never been on anything like it anywhere in the world. Not in Europe. Not in the States. Nowhere. I was blown away and wondered why we can’t at least do a tenth of this at home. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I used the Entebbe Expressway from the airport. I was in Kampala in under an hour. The Entebbe road had become a nightmare. I was shaken out of my good feeling when I had to make a trip to Tororo the other day. On my way back I spent two and half hours between Mukono and Kampala, about the same time it took me from Tororo up to Mukono. Clearly there is a lot of work to be done on our transport infrastructure. The full extent we probably don’t appreciate,...
Post a Comment
Read more