Amin stole his hotel, Museveni refused to pay for the food By Richard M. Kavuma May 16 - 22, 2004
One man’s tale of a restaurant, humiliation, patriotism and disappointment
MUKONO – In his words, he once owned one of the best restaurants in Kampala: in his present condition, you wouldn’t believe him. But a nose-piercing aroma still welcomes you to Christopher Ssembajjwe’s Bugerere Highway Restaurant in Mukono.
Mr Christopher Ssembajjwe in his restaurant in Mukono (Photo by Willy Tamale).
“I am here reading your Monitor. It has impoverished me,” Ssembajjwe says as he turns his eyes away from a copy of the paper spread out on the white plastic table. “I just find myself buying it each day.”
He has seen better times. For him, being here in this decaying building is like a business collapse. Sitting on an army-green plastic chair, he repeatedly stares at the leakage-stained plywood ceiling, occasionally resting his greying head against the unpainted, scratched wall.
It’s nearing midday. There are not many customers. When a young man walks in for “something to eat”, Ssembajjwe chats him up, totally ignoring our interview.
Even as I grumble, I know he values his customer more. He is 54. But it is mostly the last 30 years that have made him the tired man he is.
Brush with Idi Amin
“Wimpy was the best hotel in Kampala – may be apart from Sheraton,” says Ssembajjwe, suddenly frowning as if mourning the good old days. According to him, he was arrested and locked up at Naguru in 1974 on the orders of former governor of the Central Province Col. Abdallah Nasur.
Nasur accused Ssembajjwe of overcharging a woman for a cup of tea.He can’t remember how much he sold the cup of tea for. “A man called Kassim ordered that I get 50 strokes of the cane,” he recalls, making a fist with his heat-scarred fingers.
That meant 100 strokes, he says. The whip swung left, and back to the right – and counted for one stroke. “I collapsed after only ten.”
Among the detainees who helped Ssembajjwe regain consciousness was former Kampala mayor Nasser Sebaggala. Nasur later gave Wimpy (Franchise Ltd) Restaurant – then located at Plot 51 Kampala Road – to a man who had been the District Commissioner in Mbale.
Ssembajjwe then fled to Kenya. A Ugandan good Samaritan, Muhamood Saad gave him Kshs 50,000, which he used to buy a failing restaurant on Dubois Road in Nairobi.
Colouring the locality with manila paper adverts, he reopened it as “Bugerere Restaurant” with a two-week promotion of “free tea”.
“Curious customers came for the free tea but they ended up buying many of the snacks which we made,” Ssembajjwe recalls, smiling apparently at his cleverness then.
“We served tea until 9.00 pm. At the end of the first day we had 10 percent profit.” Introducing matooke later, he promoted “free food” but the diners had to buy the sauce.
There was no turning back. Bugerere became particularly popular with Ugandans in Nairobi. Ssembajjwe later took over Kibichiku Restaurant on River Road, and another down market restaurant in Ishiri, a Nairobi suburb.
Helping the NRM struggle
As more and more Ugandans met more often at Kibichiku, Ssembajjwe came to identify members of the National Resistance Movement External Committee.
Already he was known to committee secretary Sam Njuba.
He went on to meet people like Mathew Rukikaire, Amama Mbabazi, Ruhakana Rugunda, Dr Kanyerezi and former vice president Samson Kisekka (RIP).
“They often came to get fresh news from Kampala.”
At one time (he is not sure which year), a group of NRA recruits were taken to Nairobi on their way to Libya for military training.For nearly a month, Ssembajjwe says he put them up and fed them as their documents were being processed.
When the trained warriors returned, again he played the host. “Haa, I don’t know where they are now. Bakulu Mpagi died,” recalls Ssembajjwe reflectively. “There was one called Muhaire; I heard he is in America.”
Asked why he helped the cause although as he claims he wasn’t paid, Ssembajjwe says it was for the hope of a better Uganda. He thought that one day he – like many other exiles – would be free to return home and carry on with their lives.
He has in his possession a couple of letters of recommendation written by Rukikaire and Njuba acknowledging his contribution.
Working without pay
All went according to plan. The NRM captured power. Ssembajjwe returned – poor. His old NRM contacts helped. He recalls that Dr Rugunda, then Transport Minister, recommended him to Uganda Transport Company.
“He recommended me because of my contribution in Nairobi and I got a tender to prepare lunch for 320 UTC staff.” But as UTC went into receivership in 1995 Ssembajjwe says he was owed nearly Shs 16 million.
For a year, Ssembajjwe made numerous journeys to the Coopers & Lybrand (the UTC liquidators) but was not paid. At one point he was told the only invoices Cooper and Lybrand could trace were worth 6.3 million.
He accepted to be paid that much while he followed up the rest of the money. But that too has not been forthcoming. Frustrated with the bureaucrats, Ssembajjwe went back where he started – to the politicians.
It is with these that his patience has run out.
First he went to Rugunda to complain that he was unpaid, poor and jobless.
Rugunda wrote to the minister of state for Privatisation Manzi Tumubweine.
Ssembajjwe was referred to the ministry of Justice, but he returned to explain to Rugunda.
Off to the Attorney General’s office and he was told to see one Matsiko (Principal State Attorney) and then the director for Civil Litigation.
Then he met Attorney General Francis Ayume. Ayume said he had already directed the minister of state for Privatisation to pay the UTC creditors from the Divestiture account.
But Kasenene wrote back saying that government should make other budgetary provisions to pay the debts. He says he met the director for Privatisation, Michael Opagi.
He met Finance minister Gerald Ssendawula. He met minister for the Presidency Kirunda Kivejinja, who reportedly wrote another letter.
Ssembajjwe says the last person he met over his money was the minister of state for Privatisation Mr Peter Kasenene.
Now he is tired. “What is most hurting is that when I helped out, I did not expect to be paid. I did it hoping that it would benefit the whole country,” he says, looking angrily at the broken floor of his dilapidated restaurant.
“But this money, for which I got a tender and worked very hard; why don’t they pay me?” He plans to sue government. “Going to court is the only alternative I am left with,” he says lazily, meditatively.
He does not seem to believe that even the courts will help him. As we turn to leave, it is coming to 1 p.m. the aroma from the beef stew is even stronger.
Above us, on the wall hangs a Pepsi-cola calendar with the words: ‘Continue the tradition’.
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I wonder what the story would be if this man's name was Kanyerezi instead os a Ssebwajjwe?
Gook
"Rang guthe agithi marapu!" A karamonjong word of wisdom
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