Books, Books and More Books.

I came across a post on the Ugandan insomniac's page. It was all about books we have on our shelves and yet we are embarassed to say we have not yet read.

So here's my spin on this:

Books that have given me the greates joy!!!!!

1. Tick bite fever
2. No.1 ladies detective agency (series) ( Alexander McCall)
3. Miguel Street (VS Naipaul)
4. Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda A)
5. The Prince (Machiavelli
6. Shogun (Jame Clavell)
7. Asterix
8. Tintin

Books that I have and have not read (Shame!)

1. Great railway bazaar (Paul theroux)
2. Isles of Oceana (Paul theroux)
3. A bend in the river (VS Naipaul)
4. Art of War

Books that I seriously need to buy ( and hopefully read)

1. A long walk to freedom
2. A house for Mr. Biswas

Books I have been told that if I haven't read then I am semi literate

1. War and Peace ( oh lord!)
2. Heart of Darkness
3. Midnight's children (salman Rushdie)
4. 100 years of solitude (Garcia Marquez)
5. A suitable boy(Vikram Seth)

Books that I cant be bothered to look for

1. Rich dad Poor dad
2. The monk who sold his ferrari

Buying land in Temangalo ( The NSSF way)

Two weeks ago the story broke in the papers of a land deal that the NSSF was involved with that has the public shaking their heads in disbelief. It runs something like this:

1. Minister Amama Mbabazi has 400 acres (or so) of land to sell in Temangalo.
2. He asks the NSSF to buy it off him.
3. The NSSF, in their wisdom, realise its a serious case of conflict of interest, so they 'cleverly' advise Mbabazi to first sell the land to Mr. Amos Nzeyi (well connected business man and owner of the ugandan pepsi franchise) and they would then buy it off him.
4. Mr. Nzeyi, being the entrepreneur, adds another couple acres to the lot and then sells a total of 463 acres to the NSSF
5. Parliament sees red and demands an explanation!
6. Simple arithmetic shows that the land titles add up to a lower acreage than was purchased (414 to be exact).
7. The government valuer was avoided because he has 'frustrated' the NSSF before and so a private valuer was engaged and he put the value at 10 million Ug Shs more than two previous valuers.
8. The NSSF used an external lawyer to facilitate the deal ( they do have a whole legal department), only for it to be discovered that the same lawyer is also the minister Mbabazi's private lawyer!
9. And the bank (NBC) that handled the transaction on behalf of the NSSF has the minister and the chairman of the NSSF as shareholders.

Do we need to be rocket scientists to realise that something is not right! How much more can the public take of these blatant theft and influence peddling, SURELY!!

Or is is this the wake up call we needed, liberalisation of the pension sector!!!

Dare I say I told you so

After a such long lay off, technical reasons, I am back to blogging and am determined to make a better meal of it, now that I have a jet powered laptop and a great internet connection.

So I cannot help but start off with with one of my favourite subjects and that is airlines. especially our beloved Air Uganda. Remeber her, that beautiful plane and all the optimism and hope of a land locked nation resting on her shoulders, everyone praying that she woould take on the big red machine (KQ) and win.

Well despite the deep pockets of the Aga Khan development fund and the management expertise of Meridiana airlines, the cracks have appeared and even grown into fault lines!!!

The 98% on time performance has gone to the dogs, delays lasting hours and even days are not uncommon. And the image has been shattered. Apparently they are down to one plane instead of two, what ever the reason, and what a mess they have left alot of people, including many who recommended to friends that this was the best option to Entebbe.

Air Uganda is so constrained that it has cut its flights from 2 to only one, in the evening.

Well in the real world patriotism can overcome delays, inefficiency and poor options only for a short while. Busy lives and un missable flight connections cannot allow us to patronise Air Uganda for much longer. And KQ is not standing still, they have finally acquired a replacement for the B737 that crashed in cameroon and shoould be back to full strength in a jiffy.

Are we about to watch another brave Ugandan David get devoured by the Big red Machine, I will close my eyes, the thought being to painful and the puch in the pocket too gut wrenching

Oh Lord! Not Again!!!

First we were told Revolutionaries Live forever.Then he came and promoted a lieutenant to a major.Now we are told revolutionaries cannot retire, apparently term limits are not African.Honestly!!! Anyone who thinks we do not need presidential term limits in Africa needs a serious psychiatric evaluation, especially when you have thousands of sycophants cheering you on.

Battle of the Skies

Well finally we have another David trying to take on Goliath. This time in the name of Air Uganda. We can only hold our breath and hope not to turn blue!

Air Uganda is a consortium that is made up of Aga Khan Development Network and the meridian airlines group from Italy. This is clearly a total departure form the amateurish attempts of the East African airlines and the VIA to take on Goliath (Kenya Airways). This is a well heeled, monied and managerialy experienced outfit, which they have to be because KQ takes no prisoners.

The Nairobi-Entebbe route is undoubtably one of the most profitable in the world, from an airlines point of view. And the most unbelievably expensive route if you are a passenger. After all its just a 45 minute hop, so why on earth do you have to pay $350 for a return ticket. You can almost get to Dubai with that and that is a 5 hour flight!!!!!!

The answer comes in one word, MONOPOLY. KQ is king on this route and if you dont like it catch the bus. They can afford to undercut competitors just top put them out of business and then raise the price again. They have doen that so many times.

Thats why Air Uganda is a different kettle of fish, its backers have deep pockets and are aware of the lurking dangers of this bare knucled fight. But they have public goodwill and they also have a KQ straining under the load of too many passengers and too few planes, they are victims of their own success and passenger service is going down hill, delays are a fact of every day life.

We thus can only look forward to having more compettition and hence better pricing on the Nbi-Ebb route.....afterall we do deserve it.

But then again, is a duopoly really a competitive environment. What stops these two chaps having a coffee break together and fixing the prices...........Yes it can happen, so we watch and wait.

Hitting the Uganda Stock Market For Six

Well almost a year ago I made my first tentative steps investing on the USE. My target was Stanbic Uganda. And we all heard the rumours of who mught be the real shareholders of this patch of financial muscle......thats kabozi for anoher day.

Now the IPO was a roaring success as Ugandans and kenyans dived in head first and that includes myself. The price was an attractive UGX 70/-. Which in all honesty was a good deal indeed, considering the way the bank has been performing, paying dividends every year to shareholders for quite a while.

Now the price of the shares is UGX 205/-, that is almost 300% growth in value in about a year!! Am I pleased? Very much so. It has balanced out the lower returns my Kenyan shares have given, by a mile.

With my appetite whetted for more stock action I am eyeing a couple of shares in other Ugandan companies.

An MTN IPO would be a dream!!!

Research in the Bag

I don't know if you saw this story in the papers 2 days ago, but if you didn't well I will give you a brief summary:

A bag with over 20 million Ug Shs was stolen from the official car of the Commander of Defence Forces, General Aronda Nyakairima. The money was for his 'Research' Project! And his body guards have been arrested and will soon be court martialled.

Its not the fact that the theft was attributed to indiscipline and not low pay in the Forces that left me gobsmacked, but that the fact that someone so high up the food chain would have to carry research money, in cash, in his car!!! That begs the question what is the research project and why is it not managed as part of the regular military administrative duties and pay outs made via the paymaster??

Was the research proposal reviewed and passed by an ethical committee??? But would anyone dare to reject the boss's proposal?

I can only amuse myself trying to imagine the good general himself haggling with his irritated and overworked'research' assistants out in the fields somewhere, and trying to beat a deadline.
Oh Yes: And the world Journal of Military Science is interested in the end result.

Or is there really a research project?? HAAAA!

But then again, this is the republic we are talking about....things are done differently.