PHOTO: From left; Nakibinge (Kojja Ham), Hamis Kiggundu smartly dressed in a suit and Ambassador Godfrey Kirumira. Second photo: President Netumbo welcoming tycoon Ham before her swearing-in
BY MOSES MUGALULA
ON Friday March 21, 2025, Uganda’s leading investor and owner of Ham Agro Processing Industries, Dr. Hamis Kiggundu, in a company of H.E Godfrey Kirumira, the Honorary Ambassador of Namibia to Uganda, received a high level of attention and preferential treatment in Namibia, as this SADC member country was swearing-in its first female President, Her Excellency Dr. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, commonly known as NNN!
SO HELP ME GOD! President Ndaitwah swearing-in
Madam President acknowledged Dr. Hamis Kiggundu, during her inauguration at the State House in Windhoek, Namibia.
HAPPY TO SEE YOU MY SON: President Ndaitwah welcoming Dr. Hamis Kiggundu to Namibia for her inauguration. The two held a meeting after President’s swearing-in
Outgoing leader, Mbumba aged 83, handed over power to Nandi-Ndaitwah at a ceremony attended by Heads of State from several African countries including Angola, South Africa and Tanzania. The inauguration coincided with country’s 35th independence day.
President Ndaitwah becomes the second directly elected female President in Africa, after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The continent’s only other female president at the moment is Tanzania’s Hajjat Samia Suluhu Hassan, who took up the role after her predecessor John Pombe Amos Magufuli (JPAM), died in office in 2021. We will come back to this, later!
In company of the Ambassador of Namibia to Uganda His Excellency Godfrey Kirumira, Business mogul Hamis Kiggundu who owns over 10 local and international multi-billion companies received extra attention and personalized service, going above and beyond standard protocols. A team of Government officials were assigned to ensure tycoon Hamis Kiggundu is catered for as a special guest for the swearing in Head of State in Namibia.
From left: Dr. Hamis Kiggundu with entourage from Uganda
This leading investigative News Website can authoritatively report that, it is Madam President Netumbo who personally invited Dr. Hamis Kiggundu and on his arrival, the two held a meeting before the swearing-in fete.
‘I AM HERE FOR THE MARKET OPPORTUNITIES OF AGRO PROCESSED PRODUCE’, HAMIS KIGGUNDU
Speaking to us from Namibia, businessman Hamis Kiggundu revealed that he wanted to exploit the market in South African Nations for his Agro processing produce.”We want to export our agro processed products to the entire South African nations. So we have to exploit the opportunities.” Said, Mr. Kiggundu adding that, “It is indeed an honour physically attending the swearing in of the Namibian new president… a mother and a friend…..may Allah bless the work of her hands.”
For starters, Kiggundu owns Ham Agro Processing Industries with headquarters on Entebbe Expressway.
PHOTOS: Headquarter of Ham Agro-Processing Industries in Uganda
He believes that Uganda is a non tapped food world Bank. “Agriculture is the backbone of our economy. Agro-Processing and value addition is the only clear path from poverty to prosperity. We need a productive Agro food chain through value addition to cater for the domestic, regional and international markets.” Said businessman Hamis Kiggundu.
He aims at adding value to Ugandan agro produce, market farmers produce domestically, regionally and internationally. He says, this will improve farmers incomes, create employment opportunities and widen the tax base in the long run.
A year ago, Hamis Kiggundu travelled with President Museveni to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and discussed with richest investors, business partnerships for Agro-Processing, value addition and setting up Ham Agro Bank which will see majority of Ugandans become direct beneficiaries and participants in the development of their country.
Ham wants to be a leading supplier of Agro produce in South African Nations with headquarters in Namibia. And his friend, President Netumbo welcomed him with open hands. That is the secret behind his invitation as a VVIP at her swearing-in.
PRESIDENT NETUMBO & HAMIS FRIENDSHIP
All started in January 2024, when, then Namibia’s President in-wating, Dr. Nandi-Ndaitwah Netumbo visited the newly constructed State-of-the-art Hamz Stadium Nakivubo, located in the heart of Kampala, Uganda’s Capital City. The Stadium was constructed by Hamis Kiggundu, CEO Ham Enterprises (U) Ltd.
The impressed Namibian leader who was in Uganda to attend NAM and G77 plus China Summits, invited tycoon Hamis Kiggundu to Namibia to exploit business opportunities. She saluted Ham for putting up such a magnificent facility saying, Africa can only be truly developed by sons of the soil! No wonder, on her swearing-in, she had to proudly invite Ugandan Businessman Hamis Kiggundu.
In attendance when she visited Hamz Stadium, was H.E Godfrey Kirumira, Namibia’s Honorary Ambassador to Uganda.Kirumira heads Bagagga Kwagalana, an association of Wealthiest businessmen and businesswomen in Uganda. Ham, as a leading local investor in Uganda, automatically subscribes to Bagagga Kwagalana Association.
BRIEF NOTES ABOUT NAMIBIA’S NEW PRESIDENT NETUMBO
She was sworn in on Friday to lead a country facing high rates of unemployment, inequality and poverty. In addition to that, she will be be dealing with it with the additional burden of being the only ever Africa’s second directly elected female president and Namibia’s first female head of state.
“If things go well then it will be seen as a good example,” Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah told BBC’s Africa Daily podcast. “But if anything then happens, like it can happen in any administration under men, there are also those who would rather say: ‘Look at women!“
The 72-year-old, won November’s election with a 58% share of the vote.Nandi-Ndaitwah has been a long-term loyalist of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) – which has been in power since the country gained independence in 1990 after a long struggle against apartheid South Africa. She joined Swapo, then a liberation movement resisting South Africa’s white-minority rule, when she was only 14.
While the party has made changes and improved the lives of the black majority, the legacy of apartheid can still be seen in patterns of wealth and land ownership.
“Truly, land is a serious problem in this country,” she told the BBC ahead of the inauguration. We still have some white citizens and more particularly the absent land owners who are occupying the land.” From freedom fighter to Namibia’s first female president,Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said, she is committed to the “willing-buyer, willing-seller” principle, which means no-one is forced to sell up.
Namibia is a geographically large country with a small population of three million.Government statistics show that white farmers own about 70% of the country’s farmland. A total of 53,773 Namibians identified as white in the 2023 census, representing 1.8% of the country’s population.
It is one of the world’s most unequal countries, with a Gini coefficient of 59.1 in 2015, according to the World Bank, which projects poverty is expected to remain high at 17.2% in 2024.The unemployment rate rose to 36.9% in 2023 from 33.4% in 2018, according to the country’s statistics agency.
Nandi-Ndaitwah said the economy, which partly relies on mineral exports, should work more on adding value to what the country extracts from the ground rather than exporting raw materials. She also wants Namibia to focus more on creative industries and get the education sector to adjust to new economic realities.
Nandi-Ndaitwah is only the second African woman to be directly elected as president, after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.The continent’s only other female president at the moment is Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan, who took up the role after her predecessor John Pombe Amos Magufuli (JPAM) died in office in 2021.
She wants to be judged on her merits, but she said that it was a “good thing that we as countries are realising that just as men [can do], women can also hold the position of authority”.
For views/comments on this story, or if you want your story published, Whatsapp editor on +256 701 523039
