East Africa is awash with “Buy Made in…” Uganda, Rwanda, and so forth, campaigns.
Some
say we are having a new era of economic nationalism – and we were in it
before Donald Trump started his “America First” campaign.
There
is some merit to the buy-made-in-your-country idea. No country should
have to import basic things like school uniforms, exercise books, cups,
plates, toothpicks, candles, hoes and wheelbarrows.
These
things are like cleaning our noses. Everyone should be able to take
care of his or hers. Of course, we don’t make all these things.
But
that is probably all one can say in its favour. Such ideas have a nice
ring to them, but they run into very real practical difficulties. When
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni had just come to power in 1986, he
cut a fresh and populist figure.
In one of his first
press conferences, he was seen drinking his tea from what Ugandans call a
“Tumpeco” metal mug (after the company that made it), and denounced
past leaders who ate off foreign crockery. He mocked previous rulers for
importing beds when the boys in Kawempe, a small-scale industry
township, could take care of that.
We lapped it up. The
headlines screamed. The fundamental change he and his ruling National
Resistance Movement had promised had indeed arrived.
Then
the reality of having a State House that lived to some international
standard, and the quality of Ugandan products, clashed, and there is no
surprise how that ended.
Before long, there were
stories of a Museveni State House that rivalled Louis XVI’s palace, and
plates, forks and spoons bought from exquisite places abroad whose names
most Ugandans couldn’t spell.
When people set out to
make products in the knowledge that they will have a captive market,
they make a shoddy job of it. And if you are only going to sell your
Ugandan-made blankets in Uganda, why should an investor put money in
your enterprise or a bank lend you money?
However, if
even you lie to the same people, that you are looking to sell in the DR
Congo, South Sudan, and expand to West Africa in the third year, they
will quickly whip out the chequebooks.
Having these
“Buy” Uganda, Kenya, or Rwanda first pushes is profoundly unEast
African. If there is to be a campaign, it should be “Buy East African.”
The
second problem is that this parochial commerce needs ignorance to
succeed. Thirty years ago, it was still possible to get away with it.
In
this day and age, where I can go on the Internet and see that I can buy
a beautiful and well made Malaysian lamp for $2, instead of spending $5
on a crappy homemade one, it just won’t work.
Homemade products succeed most when they are also good.
That
is what national beer makers, who tend to be the most successful
companies in achieving high “Buy made at home” scores, teach us.
One
reason for that (and I know it despite being a teetotaller) is that
beer making is a kind of universal language, so there is a basic high
standard built into it.
Even when there are lots of
foreign offerings, most Kenyans will still drink a Tusker, Rwandans will
guzzle a Primus, and Ugandans their Bell or Nile.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is publisher of data visualiser Africapaedia and Rogue Chiefs. Twitter@cobbo3
No comments :
Post a Comment