Opinion
Ugandans are calling upon their government to re-establish a national airline as a matter of national interest, earning foreign currency and pride.
As a Ugandan who is very much interested in the formation of the national airline and who understands its economic importance to Uganda, I have spoken to so many people and they support the idea.
An airline is an important national asset. Any nation worth its salt must support a national carrier. It can wholly own the airline or it can partially run a carrier with well defined shareholding of 60 per cent government and 40 per cent the private sector.
The experience of life right now is that the world is making money; therefore the people of Uganda must make money out of the aviation industry and tourism. Since the unfortunate collapse of Uganda Airlines our country has lost a lot of money to foreign carriers.
As the Ugandan economy continues to grow since 1986, foreign airlines and companies seem to enjoy more of it than the citizens of the country.
Right now there are 15 foreign airlines operating in and out of Entebbe. Nine of them have daily flights and others have four or five flights a week. Business is good for these airlines because all of them take full load on their days of operation, especially during the time we know as "peak season". One of these airlines is Air Uganda which is wholly owned by His Highness the Aga Khan and it has no Ugandan shareholding.
All these airlines repatriate their earnings out of Uganda monthly. Let us suppose that each airline repatriates $2 million that means $30 million a month, and in a year $360 million. We would be sharing this money if we had our own national carrier.
The economy will expand tremendously and Ugandans will get employment. We shall have more cargo space for the horticultural products, which we export, plus other products.
The tourism industry will prosper because the airline will work with world tourism coordinators and operators to bring in tourists. You cannot develop tourism conveniently and effectively if you do not own a national airline.
Today, if you walked into the offices of the airlines which fly into Entebbe and ask for any literature that promotes tourism in Uganda, you will be lucky even to get a simple black and white brochure.
The economy of Kenya has grown tremendously in the last thirty years because of Kenya Airways and tourism. Lets borrow a leaf from them.
J.m. Kavuma-Kaggwa
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