that is encouraging, our only worry will be the import bill, particularly oil

Too optimistic. Uganda has confirmed oil but look at the USE and the economy in general. Oil only becomes a factor once the upstream is in full motion.

There is a major dislocation in the economy. The truth is that our growth is very consumption driven and in the absence of production sectors we can't grow much. To achieve 6% growth you have to loosen monetary policy which in turn results in overheating. China or India can grow at 10% for 3 years in row without overheating. But that even has a chink because China for instance relies on Exports. It's a fact our present economy can't grow at 6%+ for 3 years in a row without massive inflation coming up.

There is nothing peculiar about Uganda's oil. The quality is good enough, the waxy discussion is largely a distortion of lazy journos. It's straight forward the refinery had to be at lake albert, the challenge was the funding for the refinery and the options. Just like airliners it takes + 4 years to get a proper refinery cast from scratch. Uganda didn't want to wait for that long for the fruits of their oil.

Bear in mind there are only 2B barrels in west uganda but there is 12B+ barrels in North east Uganda, same anza rock that runs through Turkana. The 12B+ is not talked much about yet..again lazy journos would have found this out. The embroilment was a disputed capital gains tax matter which has since been resolved between Heritage/Tullow and Uganda govt. which has allowed CNOOC and total to jointly take up 67.777% in Tullow's uganda oil blocks.

Uganda's optimism faded when they sobbered up and realized it will take long before the oil is refined and sold. We will probably go through the same. Ghana is more appealing in addition to the oil because of good governance and proximity to Nigeria which is the diamond in the rough of Africa. We can't sort out our corruption yet, unga ndio hiyo, somalia etc...we are not yet there!

What KCB parted with Q1 was a shocker! Eish...

^20% m-o-m growth! SMH, yawa...