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The self-made Ugandan Billionaire

 https://vinasbiz.com/the-self-made-ugandan-billionaire/  

 May 2, 2020

At only 40 years old, Dr. Edward Kazaire is a household name in Uganda largely because of his herbal clinics and health drinks.

Having failed at jobs in the city, Dr. Kazaire used the UGX 20,000 left as transport back to the village to start doing what made many think he was mad. This is a story of a man that has built a more than 15 billion shillings Business Empire out of herbs.

 After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 2002, Kazaire hit the streets and walked his shoes out looking for jobs left and right. “I went to Kampala Pharmaceutical Industries wishing to produce tablets but wasn’t given an opportunity. I tried my luck at National Water and Sewerage Corporation and the only available slot was for volunteering. I went to several other places and it was the same story – no jobs.”

Being the first born out of eight children, Kazaire did not have anyone to pamper him so he had to survive on his own. “I decided to turn myself into a self-styled chemistry teacher and taught in three schools. But payment was only after lots of tears at some schools. A cloud of misery surrounded me. Every day that passed, things were getting tougher and rougher. This was surely not the deal I had made with Jesus. In that frustrating moment, I prayed with a brother called Charles Birungi and I felt God asking me to go back home.

Back to the Village Like a Failure

In Ugandan villages, when you are a graduate and return from the city, everyone expects you to come with some money like you own the machine that makes it. But Kazaire’s story was different. He miserably returned to Buyanja village, in Rukungiri district, with absolutely nothing – no car, no job, no money.

He went to Ndama Catholic Church to spend some time praying. He narrates, “I needed divine intervention so I could know the next step. As I prayed and listened, I realised I was a chemist but did not know how to translate that into success. I needed to figure out how to make functional what I had learnt in school. I went to the dictionary and found three definitions of a ‘chemist’. The first one was “a person studying chemistry”. The second was “a person who teaches chemistry”. The third was “a person who prepares and sells medicine”. This third one touched me in the right place. I put in three more days of prayer about it.”

Many people get great dreams but only a few turn them into reality. Kazaire had a rich idea, but the question was how to turn it into money. That moment came when he was seated in the house and someone crossed carrying a drum, the kind used to prepare waragi. “Suddenly, I remembered my Senior one chemistry where we learnt about distillation – the process of separating mixtures. As I turned, I looked at a eucalyptus tree and remembered that I had seen people use its leaves to cure cough. I asked myself, instead of people drinking distilled waragi to forget their problems, why not distil medicine and have them cured? I began to collect eucalyptus leaves and did local distillation. I mixed the oil I extracted and concocted a syrup I called NOCOF. People tasted it and got cured. In fact it turned out to be more powerful than any other cough syrup on the market at the time.” Who wouldn’t want such a kind of syrup?

“So after that first formula, next on my agenda was peptic ulcers which I knew to be a chronic disease. I recalled that in Germany some people had used cabbages to treat chronic peptic ulcers. Yet here we ate them as vegetables. In Zimbabwe, blackjack was eaten as a vegetable while in Uganda it was used to treat wounds. Since both plants were edible, I knew the issues of safety were covered and since they were both being used as medication, it meant their healing efficacy was also guaranteed. Hence I used the two herbs to create my second formula that started treating stubborn peptic ulcers.”
Until then, in Uganda, herbs were mainly used by Chinese herbal scientists in towns and illiterate local herbalists and witch doctors who gave herbal medicine a bad image. But here he was, a staunch Christian and a graduate, using herbs to cure disease. Much as it was still at a small scale, he was now sure this was the idea that would turn him into the billionaire he wanted to be, even if no one believed him. So he started spending long hours in the bush collecting all sorts of herbs, a thing that turned him into a subject of mockery, even before villagers who had never seen the light of a blackboard. He confesses he will never forget the day he passed through a trading centre carrying a sack of herbs and heard a lady laughing uncontrollably. “Eager to know what she was laughing at, I turned only to find she was pointing at me. I was so embarrassed. She claimed I had been bewitched. In that same period, many people convinced my parents to take me to Kisizi Hospital for a mental check up.”
Much as he had succeeded in creating effective products, Kazaire had not yet started earning big from them. “I could not manage a big machine for extraction, so I came to the Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory in Wandegeya; I would give them herbs, they do the extraction and give me the concentrated extract that I would dilute and give to my clients. People who saw me on buses transporting herbs to Kampala believed the rumour that I was really mad. Well, sometimes what the public humiliates and sees as an activity for worthless people is the genuine route to prosperity.”

Going Commercial

Kazaire now started packing his products and people were now coming to buy only for his father to tell him, “My home is not a clinic; get out.”
“I was already earning about Shs 100,000 per week. So I took a step and established a small clinic near my home and called it Kazire Clinic of Physiotherapy.” Word of mouth marketed him like a wildfire. Later, he secured airtime on radio stations such as Voice of Kigezi to share his healthy living message. I remember my own dad was an ardent listener of his radio programs that whenever he went on air, we had to pause anything and everything.
By this time his products were being used in several districts like Kabale, Kisoro, Rukungiri, Ntungamo, Mbarara, Bushenyi and Kanungu. He was slowly becoming an authoritative point of reference for those who wanted to improve their health, to the extent that many people would come to consult him before taking what the medical doctors had prescribed. At one point, to boost his knowledge, Kazaire went to China and did post-graduate studies in dietorytherapy and nutrition. While there, he learnt that the Chinese use herbs a lot and it is one of the reasons they live longer.

Kazaire Today

With unbreakable faith, passion, sweat and prayer, Dr Kazaire has curved for himself a business empire that’s now estimated at over 15 billion shillings, making him one of the youngest billionaires in Ugandan shilling terms and a millionaire in US dollars. He chose the brand name Kazire in honor of his grandfather who once built a big business out of motorcades in the 1960s. His company, Kazire Herbal Products directly employs over 200 people and indirectly over 5,000 people. He owns a gigantic factory that stands in Mbarara town. producing over 800 cartons of juice per day. “I still need 14 billion shillings to make this plant serve the community satisfactorily. When I complete it, it will be able to produce 5,000 cartons a day,” he explains.
The factory produces an array of products such as Kazire orange tea drink, Kazire Lemon Green Tea Drink, Kazire VIT Fruit Drink, Kazire Aloe Green Tea Drink from aloevera and  Kazire mineral water among others.
Dr Kazaire has planted most of the raw materials he uses. He owns over 1,300 acres of land where he grows lemons, pineapples, oranges, green tea, aloevera and more than 100 other traditional herbs. Some of the lemons he uses are so rare that he gets them from Arua and Soroti and plans to begin importing them from Tanga in Tanzania. He also has an agreement with Isingiro district local government to supply one million lemon seedlings to farmers in the district freely. The catch is that he holds the right to buy the lemons from the farmers after harvesting.
History will never forget July 1979 when Peter Kazaire and Komushana Olive gave birth to a baby that was to grow into this celebrated industrialist – Dr Edward Kazaire. With all this success, he remains very humble, always praising God together with his wife Tukwasibwe Evas and three boys and one girl that God has blessed them with. If his story cannot inspire you to turn your own ideas into money, then I wonder what can.
At only 33 years old, Edward Kazire is a household name in western Uganda largely because of his herbal clinics and health drinks. His business empire is valued at over sh10b and he employs about 300 people. Yet things have been anything but easy for this chemistry graduate.
Fresh from university, he had to endure ridicule from villagers, who labelled him “mad” and “bewitched” when he quit a (low-paying) job in Kampala and returned to his village in Rukungiri district to pick herbs from the bushes.  He told Caroline Ariba and Nickson Turyahokayo how years later, he has built a business empire from these herbs. This story can be accessed in the E-paper here

Pastor, District Official In Hot Soup Over Land Fraud

Posted on November 1, 2019 
 

By Micheal Atwakiire 


Sheema: Members of Rushozi Cooperative and Savings Limited in Kibutamo, Rushozi division, Sheema municipality, are cursing their pastor and district commercial officer, who they accuse of pocketing their savings.


Pastor Samuel Byaruhanga alias Mukama Nayamba, the proprietor Mukamanayamba Drinks store, Allan Buhanda, the Sheema District Commercial officer and Eng. Seezi Namutuha Mugoye, the chairman board of directors for Rushozi Cooperative and Savings Limited, are accused of allegedly selling the SACCO’s land and sharing the money among themselves.
The angry and disappointed members of the SACCO on Wednesday gathered at Kibutamo, where their land which was sold is located.

They told our reporter that what they want is their land, on top of officially ejecting Seezi their Board Chairman from office. They also warned Pastor Sam Mukama Nayamba to go slow on the matter or else they will drag him to court.
Mzee John Tigarebaana, who is the acting chairman BOD said that “We bought our land as SACCO members a few years back with an intention of building there our own offices, because where we are renting.

 
“We didn’t know that our land had been sold until recently when Sheema District Commercial Officer Allan Buhanda called me on phone, saying he wanted to meet me at my home. When he arrived, he gave me Shs3m saying that it was for rent. He again gave me a parcel which I think contained money in it. When I asked him the purpose of the parcel, he told me that it’s a thanksgiving for the activities I have done for the SACCO.”

 
 Some of the SACCO members who are demanding for their land

“Tigarebaana added that “He thereafter pulled out a land agreement for me to sign. When I read it, it indicated that Rushozi Cooperative had sold its land to pastor Mukamanayamba. It had been signed by Eng. Seezi Mugoye our board chairman, Allan Buhanda himself, manager Mukamanayamba, Kamukama Kezekiya the vice-chairman board and stamped by the chairman LC1 of another village. I asked Buhanda; are not a member of this SACCO? You are bringing this agreement to me as who and why did they use the Chairman LC One of another area, not the one of where the land is lcoated? I returned his money and refused to sing, then he went away. As members we don’t want to hear anything else but to be handed back our land.” he narrated.

It is alleged that after being informed that their land was illegally sold, SACCO members went and fenced it off forcefully, which annoyed Pastor Mukamanayamba, who allegedly ordered his manager to open a case of trespassing at Sheema police station against the members vide file number SD REF 38/2/10/2019.

The Officer in Charge (OC) Sheema Central Police station one Afande Okech, advised members to take the matter to court.
However, Pastor Mukamanayamba claims to have bought the land at Shs15m and claims he fully paid the owners although he seemed not clear about who the actual owner is.