By Kevin Hempel Policymakers increasingly consider youth entrepreneurship as a possible solution to the youth employment crisis. However, experts believe that only 20 percent of all people are fit to run their own businesses. Moreover, people with some experience are more likely to succeed as entrepreneurs. Last year, the title …
Read More »Focusing on smoother, faster trading on USE
By Patrick Kagenda Joseph Kitamirike is the New Chief Executive at the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE), The Independent`s Patrick Kagenda spoke to him When do you start your day? I rise at 5:30 am every working day and I leave home an hour later in order to beat the traffic …
Read More »Fuel crisis again
By Haggai Matsiko Experts say government must plan for December and 2011 elections Usually, when pump prices of petroleum products in Uganda shoot up, the government and oil sector operators blame it on some mishap in neighbouring Kenya. This time there was neither malfunction at the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd …
Read More »Budget trouble
By Dicta Asiimwe MPs allege forgery of reports but Speaker raises no objection Parliament approved the budget figures this week with, at one point at 6 pm, 21 members in attendance. Presided over by Speaker Edward Sekandi, by six o’clock, with over one hundred votes not yet passed, those present …
Read More »Maize grain: A neglected coupon that could boost Uganda’s power in the EAC?
By Eriasa S. Mukiibi One issue that has preoccupied Ugandans since the launch of the East African common market is what they could sell to their regional counterparts in order to compete successfully. Dr. Bernabas Kiiza, an agricultural economist at Makerere University, believes the answer to this puzzling question is …
Read More »Makerere’s stoppage of contributions was genesis of current standoff with NIC- Akinwale
By Patrick Kagenda Samson Akinwale is the General Manager of the National Insurance Corporation (NIC). He talked to The Independent’s Patrick Kagenda about the performance of the insurance industry. What are the challenges the insurance industry is facing? As you are aware that insurance’s contribution to GDP continues to be …
Read More »Fire outbreaks: Insurers divided on insuring informal businesses
By Eriasa S. Mukiibi Joseph Musoke is a distressed man. On Tuesday July 31, he woke up to the news that all the merchandise in his shop, which took him eleven years to build, had evaporated in a plume of smoke following the fire that gutted Kisekka Market that fateful …
Read More »Lack of tea research has kept Uganda tea quality inferior
By Patrick Kagenda Roger Siima, General Manager of Mpanga Growers Tea Factory, talked to The Independent`s Patrick Kagenda about the tea industry in Uganda and how it fits in the growing regional competition.’ When do you start your day? My day starts a bit early at about 6:00am. This is …
Read More »Uganda faces telecom price war as Kenya, Tz, Rwanda cut call rates
By Eriasa S. Mukiibi Kenya has made drastic cuts in mobile telephone call tariffs, posing a huge challenge to her Great Lakes regional counterparts on how to cope with the competitiveness in the sector following the launch of the East African Common Market. Kenyans have been calling at an equivalent …
Read More »Common Market opens business opportunities and challenges
By Patrick Kagenda Stephen Mwanje is the Managing Director of BM Forex Bureau and chairman of the Uganda Forex Bureau and Money Remittence Association (UFBA) The Independent’s Patrick Kagenda spoke to him When do you start your day? I normally wake up at 4.45am. I stay in Mukono and I …
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