I have always nursed ambitions in business since my University days. When I left University in 2000, like any other young graduate, my major challenge was putting my business conceptual ideas into reality. My thinking of the job market was not good.I had a bank account though with irregular activity. I had no capital but I had great ideas. In Uganda, like many other African nations, entreprenuers are a class that can't easily break into the realm of risky business because their capital base can even be blown by a slight wind. Meantime, you have micro-finance institutions charging between (3-4)% monthly interests on micro-loans which translates into (36-48)% annually. Certainly, this is not good economics for the poor. The Micro-finance institutions are private companies doing business and government has certified them as legal business entities and they pay tax based on returns. There are also financial shylocks in town that are playing a part in the financial market.By default, government knows very well how both the formal and informal financial market charges their clients. Infact, most of the interest rates are determined by Bank of Uganda with the full knowledge of the World Bank/IMF, the two principle economic policy advisory agents of government. It means Government efforts to fight poverty are contradictory in policy. The political will does not mirror the technical and policy platform on which the economy runs. This fortunately is not something that can be explained from a political prism to many potential voters who are trapped in poverty by would be beneficiaries. 
I ventured into livestock farming since its our traditional occupation as the Banyarwanda. I had heard students and people assert that obtaining a job required knowing people high up in corridors of government or relatives in corporate institutions. Certainly I did not know very many. Even those I knew, I did not have much political or social influence. I have for long had the ambition for Business and in a big way. Having graduated with a BSc. majoring in Biochemistry coupled with IT Training, as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in 2000 and my knowledge in Cisco industry hardware deployments, I had a broad views of where the world was heading. But I lacked the social support to nurture this dream to fruition. Early 2001, I was hired as a Network Engineer by an international public health agency. This job gave me "comfort", my zeal for business went into a lull till 2003. My knuck for business saw me start my initial investment in real estates as a sole proprietor. The difficulty even here was that banks were only willing to grant me credit based on my employment and not the business proposal I had. Advisory services were purely inclined on the security of my employment rather than my business potential & projections. That to me was a minus to the banking sector in Uganda! The credit facility advertized at in the range of (25-28)% was not for investment in assets that could generate streams of income for the future but vehicles, home electronics & utensils. Then the mortgage industry was limited and still is to a few lucrative areas which many young people cannot break in. Those that existed had an operational radius of 5 miles from the city center. This locked out many would be participants. Patience and perseverence in business is important but the structural bottle-necks to infant entreprenuership drain morale, undermine productivity of a big size of our labor force. My initial investment was $3.500 and today my forced market value of my investment stands at approximately $50.000. This investment is locked up in my names and like many I fear the risk of presenting it to a bank at an average interest of 25% to expand my business.The above bottle-necks, registration of the company was laborious. A lot of paper work to chase around in the registry of companies. Public officers made it look like I was being done a favor.Many middle-men in the food chain asking for bribes. When it came to voluntary VAT registration of a new incorporated company, I was asked to avail the assets, properties, vehicles for a company that had not done any business. Presenting a few of my personal assets which indeed I was using to establish the company, I was asked to pay a provisional tax as a "show" of seriousness. To obtain the TIN number and the VAT certificate I had to interface with many middle-men(Red Tape). In addition, you have to pay for an operational licence as well as a Trading licence at local government level. This would not be a problem but there is need to offer incentives for registered businesses to grow rather than kill them before they can start. In a nut-shell, there are lots of young people who can't participate in the economy because of these structural disincentives.The end result is unemployment, redundancy, crime, politcal resentment and conflict. A few people manage to swim through these challenges but these are issues that can be addressed institutionally but any Visionary Government! Rockford Harris Group,Ltd a multi-skilled corporation through its syergistic approach is build capacity through institutional and business development consultancies to both individual, corporate and public institutions in specific areas of inters. You can find more info about the corporation on http://www.rockfordharris.com
