Dreams from selling banana juice

After two days of reading the book, I now appreciate why he wanted me to read it before the interview. Two days to the anticipated interview, the media carried reports of his attempted assassination so he postponed it to the following Saturday.

At the gate, the simplicity of the residence of the Consul of Pakistan strikes me. Expecting a gigantic gate with the finest coatings, huge fence with razor wire, the residence is just like any affluent man’s Muyenga home.

As we sit near what was once a swimming pool that was closed to create space for official functions to munch on bread with tea, the temptation to ask about the assassination attempt is irresistible.

“God has always protected me. A stranger tipped me on phone about the evil plot two days earlier,” he says in a matter of fact way before assuring me how he knows. “The Indian behind all this has failed to bring me down. He wrote to the government in Pakistan so they sack me and failed, tried to put a caveat on my property and failed, now even in trying to kill me, he is going to fail. I trust my God!” He goes into details of how he once had a party and introduced the Indian, who owns a string of properties in town, whose name for legal purposes we prefer to withhold, to his family members. “My elder brother and I trusted the fellow and now I am paying for over trusting people,” he says.

As the atmosphere of the interview gets a little tense, a call comes from a Pakistan asking for a recommendation to be a dual citizen. Another opportunity to discover the profound humility of Mzee as he is fondly called by the young and old at home. He phones his secretary to come to office and type the letter, but being a weekend, she regrets letting him down, pleading that she is in Jinja and all he says is, “It is okay, don’t mind, I will type it myself.”

Mr Katatumba, tell me about your work as the Honorary Consul of Pakistan to Uganda? I implore him but before I finish the sentence, he holds my arm and reminds me. “Call me Doctor or Your Excellency Katatumba.” I have an honorary PhD of Life Achievement from the United Graduate College and Seminary of the US.” Thankfully, he gets back to the question.

In a bid to save expenses, the Government of Pakistan, he explains, closed its Ugandan embassy and remained with the one in Kenya, the option then was to appoint a focal person who would perform the duties of the embassy, help its citizens get recommendations, defend the image of the country and represent it in diplomatic ceremonies here.

Becoming an ambassador
During his tenure as the President of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Katatumba met Pervez Musharraf who later became Pakistan’s president while leading Ugandan business delegations to the rice growing nation. “When Musharraf ascended to the presidency and appointed, a business friend he trusted and had confidence in; he raised a lot of dust given that I am a Christian and would become the only one in the world representing the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” This prompts the question on the size of his pay cheque, but interestingly, he tells me that the service comes with neither a salary nor allowances!

“I cater for all my staff expenses and even this 32- roomed house is not for the Pakistan government,” he says, marveling at his old mansion. The only rosy bit of the service comes with diplomatic privileges and immunity, for example, I am not subject to Ugandan law.” He adds, “You journalists wouldn’t have rushed here to cover the story of that man who wanted to finish me off if I was only rich. By the way, I am one of the few Ugandans with the title His Excellency.”

He goes on to boast of the 120 countries and 350 cities he has visited pointing to the framed photos of him rubbing shoulders with a host of dignitaries, notably among them, former Libyan leader,Muammar Gaddafi and President Museveni, who in his book, he states, turned down his request for a hotel business partnership under unclear grounds.

However, the diplomatic service has not been a rosy journey as he will live to remember the July 2010 Al-Shabab orchestrated bombings. 18 Pakistanis were arrested as suspects. His challenge was to protect them, see to it that they get justice and the six-month long investigations came with constant calls from relatives, friends and the Pakistani government.” All the 18 were eventually found innocent and set free.

“The good thing with Pakistanis is that they are hardworking and account for 70 per cent of the car imports in Uganda, so there are limited cases of people bothering me for financial bail out, I mainly handle the technical aspects of my ambassadorial duties.”

“When are you retiring?” is a question that gets him putting his spectacles down and reminding me he is not paid but only rendering service. He goes the extra mile and says when the Musharraf administration left office, he was obliged to write two letters: one to indicate willingness to retire and the other for continuity of diplomatic service. President Asif Ali Zardari’s regime decided to retain him.

With this experience and with the money, I wonder why he does not take advantage of the highly commercialised Ugandan politics and get his way to parliament or even cabinet. He puts back his spectacles, laughs then answers, “politics is nowhere near my imaginations.” He adds, cases of cliques and in-fighting that makes politics a game of not who you are but how unfortunate you are.

Not even examples of clean politicians can change his stand. If he can, he says, he would discourage his children from joining, I am thus ticked to delve into his family.

“Would you go if you were appointed ambassador, I push him on, but he crosses his legs and sits with hands akimbo and says, “My friend, I am the ambassador of a nuclear republic, Uganda is a banana republic, I am better off where I am.”

Family life

technical aspects of my ambassadorial duties.”

“When are you retiring?” is a question that gets him putting his spectacles down and reminding me he is not paid but only rendering service.
He goes the extra mile and says when the Musharraf administration left office, he was obliged to write two letters: one to indicate willingness to retire and the other for continuity of diplomatic service. President Asif Ali Zardari’s regime decided to retain him.

With this experience and with the money, I wonder why he does not take advantage of the highly commercialised Ugandan politics and get his way to parliament or even cabinet. He puts back his spectacles, laughs then answers, “politics is nowhere near my imaginations.” He adds, cases of cliques and in-fighting that makes politics a game of not who you are but how unfortunate you are.

Not even examples of clean politicians can change his stand. If he can, he says, he would discourage his children from joining, I am thus ticked to delve into his family.

“Would you go if you were appointed ambassador, I push him on, but he crosses his legs and sits with hands akimbo and says, “My friend, I am the ambassador of a nuclear republic, Uganda is a banana republic, I am better off where I am.”

Family life
His nine children, from his two wives whom he says have never fought or quarreled, are dotted all over the career world. The eldest son is a pilot, the second-born, a nurse is married to an American man, Angella Katatumba, the musician and her twin brother, Frank Rugirwa who owns Obama Restaurant.Another one is an advisor with Citi Group.

Jay Katatumba, his youngest son fell victim of his trial and error. He pushed him to study journalism in Malaysia only to learn later on that he was studying law instead. So, why would he desire to have a journalist in the family? “You don’t know how I admire you people, you have knowledge on everything, you should get PhDs. Because of the lesson learnt the hard way, I don’t coerce them to study anything and I give them equal treatment and opportunities.”

Angella, he explains, manages some of his biggest businesses like Hotel Diplomate and Uganda Real Estates Developers because she has in-born leadership quality. “As for her music talent, may be it is from her maternal great grandparents’ genes,” he opines.

Tracing his business roots
After establishing rapport, I am content that I can now ask any question on his business life without him feeling edgy and thus I fire the first question on how, when and where he started his business journey.

At the age of seven while at Nyamitanga Primary School in Mbarara, he began selling banana juice to buses plying the Mbarara-Kabale route. At such an early age, he employed some older villagers to squeeze and package the juice while he went to school.

His nine children, from his two wives whom he says have never fought or quarreled, are dotted all over the career world. The eldest son is a pilot, the second-born, a nurse is married to an American man, Angella Katatumba, the musician and her twin brother, Frank Rugirwa who owns Obama Restaurant.Another one is an advisor with Citi Group.

Jay Katatumba, his youngest son fell victim of his trial and error. He pushed him to study journalism in Malaysia only to learn later on that he was studying law instead. So, why would he desire to have a journalist in the family? “You don’t know how I admire you people, you have knowledge on everything, you should get PhDs. Because of the lesson learnt the hard way, I don’t coerce them to study anything and I give them equal treatment and opportunities.”

Angella, he explains, manages some of his biggest businesses like Hotel Diplomate and Uganda Real Estates Developers because she has in-born leadership quality. “As for her music talent, may be it is from her maternal great grandparents’ genes,” he opines.

Tracing his business roots
After establishing rapport, I am content that I can now ask any question on his business life without him feeling edgy and thus I fire the first question on how, when and where he started his business journey.

At the age of seven while at Nyamitanga Primary School in Mbarara, he began selling banana juice to buses plying the Mbarara-Kabale route. At such an early age, he employed some older villagers to squeeze and package the juice while he went to school.

At this point, he lectures me on how business is talent. “I think it is in born,” he says, revealing that this is why he lashes out at people who disorient the youth with the talk of become job creators and not seekers. This, he says, is like telling us all to become writers or footballers yet it is talent. “Rather than preach the entrepreneurship gospel, we should instill work ethics in the youth, tell them about job loyalty and leave job creation to those with the inborn ability.”

But in an economy where hundreds of thousands of graduates are churned out annually to compete in the small job market that absorbs very few. I take him on this one. “Don’t misunderstand me, unemployment is everywhere, life is all about struggling and grabbing opportunities but the ultimate is, those who can create jobs do so, the rest must work,” he explains. Talking of opportunities, he continues to narrate his business journey.

“I saved the money from the juice business and bought a bicycle and at school, there were only two bicycles, the Headmaster’s and mine.” He adds proudly, “Later on, I graduated to a motor bike which I hid from my father who would get concerned on seeing me with more than Shs200.”

While the other teenagers roamed villages and were taken hostage by adolescence, during his senior four holidays at Ntare School, he saw an advert in the newspapers calling for a contractor to manage Nganwa hostel on behalf of government. He applied and won the tender to run the hostel for two years.

How he maneuvred his way through the competition from both rich men and graduates in Mbarara, still puzzles him but all he recalls is that when he went to Old Kampala S.S for his A-level studies, he hired a trusted friend to run the tender on his behalf.

When he went to Makerere University, for a degree in Economics and Political Science, his business eye saw the opportunity of opening a laundry business for the students. He convinced Northcote Hall’s administrator to directly deduct payment from “boom”, a government allowance to students then. The success was so impressive that it gave him impetus to open a car washing bay.

With a natural customer care instinct, he ensured the car owners were served by smart, uniformed staff and given receipts. This made his washing bay a darling for most car owners around and far from Wandegeya. But this business success became his undoing when people he had trusted devised a way of shooting down his rising business star.

They began piercing car tyres and siphoning fuel from customers’ cars. Before he knew, customer loyalty had vanished in thin air. He saw a silver lining in this dark cloud and after graduation, rather than accept the many job offers, he linked up with his brother who had studied architecture, opened DCM (Design, Construction and Materials). He would draw house plans and get the house ready.

All a client had to do was pay the money and await the house warming. The company rapidly grew into one of the biggest and most reliable contractors in town and in no time, he had began scooping multi million contracts. “I won a tender of US$2m from Kabale PTC to build dorms, class rooms and several other contracts across the nation,” he reminisces.

Going to exile
At the prime time of the business, Idi Amin’s soldier came to buy materials, but given the strict rules, he could not get them because they were booked. This enraged the army man who asked to meet the owner of the prosperous business. Scared and fearing for his dear life, he sneaked to exile in Kenya. Again, this was an opportunity to expand his business acumen.

“I opened DCM Kenya while remote controlling the Uganda Chapter and but one of my managers sabotaged it,” he notes sadly. As though to fill the gap, he opened a tour company in Nairobi and while asleep, he was so incensed by the noise of the planes that hovered over his roof that he asked how much they cost and saved money to buy one while getting training to become a pilot. Before he knew, planes were part of his tour company’s car hire and rental business, “In 1983, I personally flew in the Chief Justice, Wako Wambuzi, to swear in Prof. Yusuf Lule.”

Opening Hotel Diplomate
The hotel, atop Muyenga Tank Hill with a clear view of the city was among the first private hotels in the country. Quite astonishing it was a residential house he failed to complete before going to self-imposed exile in 1976. While there, he kept pressing a brother to sell it off. “My brother refused to yield to my pressure when I came back in 1983, I completed it,” he says, holding his head as he recalls how the hotel became a safe haven for United Nations, World Bank guests and fetched a lot of money, with rooms going for as much as $200 per night.

On the Katatumba suites, he says, “East African Insurance Company in Kenya was losing business and wanted to sell all their six buildings, I was contacted by a friend and I boarded my plane to Kenya from where we agreed to buy the suites on loan.”

He stresses the need for trust worthiness, citing how much as his father was fairly well off as a Ssaza chief and medical doctor at Mbarara Hospital, he never gave him capital, playing his deals fair and persevering saw him through.” With the accumulated capital, he later expanded to Katatumba Resort in Mbarara in 1983. But to say his business life has been rosy would be grossly wrong. “At one time, I lost $1m to a crook who duped me into an imaginary airline business, but life moves on, I don’t fight those who fight me.”

A satisfied man
When I ask him to project himself in the next five years, he says, “I am satisfied with what I have. However clever you are, you can not own the world, why do I need all the money for? I have even sold off some of my properties abroad.” His net worth is a question I ask with mixed feelings but he closes his eyes, makes a rough estimate and zeroes down on, “About $10-15m.”

“I believe in God and miracles,” he says putting his palms together as though ready to pray, and explains why. One time he was diagnosed with chronic asthma and prostate cancer. He came back with tablets the doctors told him to swallow daily till death, but for a man who once lost a child aged four, this sounded normal. While at Muyenga mansion, he tuned in to watch televangelist Benny Hinn and the preacher said, “You are watching me and you have asthma and prostrate cancer, stand up and pray and be healed.” He obliged and on from then on, all medical tests show he healed from the two ailments.

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