You can tell
the generation that a man or woman comes from, if they casually mention “Nytil
Jinja” as the fabric that their school uniform was made from.
For in the 1960s and 1970s, much of the affordable fabrics sold in Kenyan shops, were brought in from Uganda – hence the “Jinja”, the town where these fabrics were manufactured.
In all, Uganda had three things necessary for industrial take-off: an early start in manufacturing, an educated workforce and a hardworking population eager for economic opportunity.
But most
significant is that Uganda had a greater capacity for power generation than
Kenya. Every schoolchild knew of the “Owen Falls Dam” (now known as the
“Nalubaale power station”) as its regional significance was a regular question
in geography exams: it supplied a good part of the power it generated to Kenya.
If you bear it
in mind that this major source of hydroelectric power was inaugurated in 1954 –
a full 10 years before Kenya gained independence – I don’t think I need say
much more about how far ahead of us Uganda was in having the basic foundation
for high economic growth, based on manufacturing.
Not that manufacturing sprung up immediately. As a Ugandan scholar based in the US wrote in an essay on the legacy of the Owen Falls Dam project, “At its completion in 1954, the dam immediately expanded Uganda’s electricity supply capacity from 1MW to 150MW. But the expected boom in electricity consumption did not happen. One textile mill and a copper smelter were the only industrial establishments to crop up.
The Uganda Electricity Board (UEB) – which was established on 15 January 1948 – resorted to selling between one third and one half of the electricity generated to Kenya.”
Note that Singapore was not yet an independent nation, at this time when Uganda had a huge surplus of electricity. Also, both Singapore and Japan were in the 1950s to 1960s, major exporters of fabrics and garments. The high-tech and heavy industries of Japan (shipbuilding, electronics, steel, automobiles, etc), as well as Singapore’s successful shift to higher-value industrial and service sectors came much later.
But why do I claim that Uganda by the 1960s was effectively poised to compete with these East Asian nations which in subsequent decades achieved miraculous economic growth rates?
Well, cheap electricity was the key factor. And the secret to this capacity for massive supply of cheap and sustainable power, lay in that Uganda’s hydroelectric power stations were built over the Nile River.
Compared to the Nile, our own Tana River which supports many of Kenya’s hydroelectric power dams, is but an idle stream.
And indeed, much bigger hydroelectric power dams have since been built along the Nile, with the Nalubaale Power Station/Owen Falls Dam – at this point in history – being not the first or second biggest power generator, but the fifth.
Now in case you think the possibility of early industrialisation in Uganda is merely a fantasy, consider that the majority of the roughly 800 million people that China famously lifted out of poverty over the past few decades by creating lots of jobs in factories, had previously been peasant farmers: something Uganda (like Kenya) had plenty of.
So, Uganda actually had most of the key requirements for a rapid escalation from an agrarian economy to “newly industrialised” status.
Of course, there were complaints even back then, that the Ugandan economy was largely dominated by “Indians” (whom we now more appropriately refer to as “the Asian community”).
But, for reasons I cannot understand, there was little appreciation in those days that the ownership of any particular factory is not the most important thing.
What matters is that the factories should exist; that factory workers receive a fair wage; that more and more factories should be built; and thus, more and more jobs created.
The question then arises: what went wrong?
Two words: Idi
Amin.
Or more precisely, the 1971 military coup which placed the brutal General Idi Amin at the helm in Uganda and led to a long and destructive downward spiral for the Ugandan economy.
This economic collapse only ended with the 1986 ascension to power of the now long-serving Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni.
