Uganda hawks nsenene in Juba, while Kenya does banks- wait!” - Daily Monitor, July 20, 2011

Kyadondo East MP Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda and renowned columnist Charles Onyango Obbo both wrote that Uganda can only export matooke and nsenene (grasshoppers) to South Sudan while our neighbour Kenya is reaping big in the newfound nation by opening up banks ( Titled: Juba: Uganda vends bananas while Kenya opens bank branches and Uganda hawks nsenene in Juba, while Kenya does banks- wait!” - Daily Monitor, July 20, 2011). 

Both Nganda and Obbo were scorning the Uganda government for failing to reap big from the South Sudan market like our Kenyan brothers are doing. This chiding is of course premised on the testimony that whereas Uganda staked so much to cause the liberation of South Sudan, as a country we have failed to use that historical advantage to reap big economically from the South Sudan market.
And that we can only sell cheap stuff like nsesene and matooke while Kenya goes into massive investments like banks. Uganda, unlike most countries in Africa, committed both human and logistical support to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). In almost equal measure, we paid a heavy price through a Sudan-sponsored insurgency conducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army that wreaked havoc in northern Uganda for two decades.
Obviously the remarks by both Obbo and Nganda are wrong. For example, Uganda’s formal exports to South Sudan that include, among others, coffee, sugar, iron and steel, cement, cereals, etc, have increased from $22,676,000 in 2004 to $245,873,000 in 2008. These exports include vehicles and other machinery as re-exports.
Much of the trade between the two countries is informal; so, it is rarely captured. However, the informal cross-border trade survey conducted by the Bank of Uganda and the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics indicates that the informal trade grew from $7,842m in 2006 to $929,905m in 2008. Figures from the Uganda Export Promotion Board indicate that trade with South Sudan has been growing remarkably.
According to a report from Uganda Export Promotion Board released in 2008, booming business between Uganda and South Sudan was registered in the following products: coffee $52.9m (rose by 27%), beverages $39.7m (rose by 169%), sugar $18.7m (rose by 232%), cement $17.03m (rose by 148%), cooking oil $10.5m (rose by 348%), iron and steel $10.25m (rose by 184%), and cereals/ legumes $9.6m (rose by 200%).
Other products which have markets in South Sudan, include: ceramic products (Kajjansi tiles and bricks), poultry and poultry products, pharmaceuticals, fish, fertilizers, vegetable planting materials, mineral fuels, books, newspapers and works of art. The Government of Uganda, with the assistance of a loan from the World Bank, will this financial year construct a tarmac road from Gulu to Atiak, all the way to Nimule on the South Sudan border.
This is meant to ease and increase the lucrative trade between Uganda and South Sudan. Uganda’s giant industrialists in sugar production, cement, iron and steel are in a massive drive to double their capacity because of the huge demand in South Sudan.
Finally, trade benefits notwithstanding, it is important to note that Uganda chose to assist our South Sudan brothers not primarily to benefit from business deals when they get their independence. The crucial goal was to bring an end to years of servitude of the black southerners in their own motherland.
It is similar emotions that led Uganda to assist our Rwandan brothers to liberate their country in 1994, and pretty much the same motivation has led our gallant soldiers to now serve in Somalia. Undeniably, that is what Tanzania’s Pan-Africanist former president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, had in mind when he committed his country’s resources to liberate Uganda from the Idi Amin dictatorship in 1979.
Without a doubt, when Somalia is finally pacified, Kenyans might get better business deals than Uganda because of their proximity to Somalia. Secondly, Kenya being the economic giant of East Africa will get better business opportunities than any other country in the region.

The author works at the Uganda Media Centre.

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