David Herbert
6 September 2007
Kampala — David Golola stood in Mpererwe Shopping Centre and pointed at a row of Jooie Mango Juice bottles in the refrigerator.
He runs the fruit-juice company in nearby Kanyanya, but the business took root because of his efforts as a guard in Iraq.
Mr Golola is one of thousands of UPDF and police veterans who have earned anywhere from $900 to $1,200 (Shs1.6 million to Shs2.2 million) a month as security guards in Iraq, watching over Internet cafes and mess halls at American bases.
His juice factory and entrepreneurial spirit could make him the poster boy for the economic possibility that lies in the Iraqi desert.
After returning last September, he built a house in Mukono and then spent Shs5.5 million buying equipment and renting space to open Jooie.
Mr Golola now sells 400 boxes of mango and pineapple juice a day to grocery stores in Kampala, Jinja and Luweero. Twelve months after his return, the 29-year old has six employees and earns Shs700,000 a month in profit.
Mr Golola and his colleagues remit more than $20 million a year, just a sliver of the more than $100 billion a year war effort and a fraction of the billions in foreign aid annually pouring into the Ministry of Finance's coffers.
Yet all around the country, these remittances are stimulating entrepreneurship and home building in a way foreign aid intends to but usually does not.
"There is more demand than I can supply," said Mr Golola, who plans to return to Iraq to raise more capital and expand the business.
Dreshak International - which sent Mr Golola to Iraq - is the largest supplier of Ugandan security guards to the war-torn country. The recruiting firm currently has 1,800 Ugandans working in 12 bases around Iraq, but there are thousands more looking for these jobs than there are positions available. This hunger for contracting work is the result of downsising in the military and the lack of opportunities for university graduates, many guards argued.
"We don't have a good environment where we can execute our vision," said Mr Amos Arinaitwe, a UPDF veteran who holds a degree in accounting from Makerere University but has been unable to find a job. The day of his departure for Iraq, Mr Arinaitwe was upbeat, listing his investment ideas for when he returns next year. "I am so excited to go there."
The job entails risks, of course, and some local observers object to the deployment of Ugandans in Iraq, worrying that recruiting firms put guards in excessive danger. Nightly reports of violence on CNN and BBC do nothing to assuage that view.
But Dreshak guards rejected that characterisation. Most are veterans of brutal campaigns against the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Allied Democratic Forces and the Lord's Resistance Army. Swiping identification cards and guarding post offices - for 10 to 20 times their UPDF salaries - is a holiday. So far, no Ugandan guard has been killed, and no Dreshak employees have been injured, aside from the occasional ankle sprain during pick-up football games.
"This is not a new phenomenon for us," Mr Arinaitwe said. "We are not taking civilians [to Iraq]."
Dreshak guards are paid $100 a month in Iraq while the rest of their salary is deposited in bank accounts in Uganda, making it easier to save money. Returning home with $9,000 or more in the bank, the first project for most guards is buying land and building a home.
Visit the Dreshak headquarters on Kyadondo Road and you will invariably find a handful guards who are back for their annual two-week vacation. Mention the money they earned in Iraq, and they will eagerly pull photographs from wallets to show the houses they built.
Or you can follow Dreshak guard Fred Mayombwe to his home in Kalerwe. A small fan strains to cool the cramped 2-room apartment where he lives with his wife and two sons. The nine-year veteran of the UPDF will then take you to Nabweru, where he has almost completed construction on a spacious five-room house, which he began this April after returning from 15 months in Iraq.
The entire project has cost more than Shs15 million, far more than he ever could have saved with his UPDF salary (a private earns just Shs180,300 a month). When he returns from his next tour in Iraq, he hopes to open a garage and work as a mechanic.
Meanwhile, Mr Golola's juice company is just one of many small businesses started by guards with fat bank accounts. Dreshak's courtyard is filled with the motorcycles of vacationing guards - working as a boda boda cyclist is a popular post-Iraq occupation. Others have started primary schools, maize-grinding plants and a soap factory.
As they waited to leave for the airport last month, Mr Arinaitwe and fellow recruit Barry Mpeirwe discussed pooling their money with other guards to open a hospital or a bus company.
Not everything has been rosy in the private security industry. Dreshak is the target of several lawsuits and an upcoming select committee in Parliament over allegations of underpayment and abuse, charges the company vigorously denies. Askar Security Services - the second largest contractor for Iraq guards - is guilty of well-documented abuses, including charging guards for training and flights that American firms had already paid for.
Conmen have also cashed in on the Iraq gold rush, taking money from aspiring guards in exchange for promises of jobs that never materialise. The Ministry of Labour exercises little oversight over the contracting industry and is too understaffed and under-funded to act anywayon these allegations.
Job scarcity
Despite the industry's rampant fraud and mistreatment, the thousands of men and women that continue to flock to firms like Dreshak and Askar are a testament to the scarcity well-paying jobs. On any given day at Dreshak's headquarters, a dozen or more men can be found milling around - applications and medical papers in hand - trying to secure a spot on the next flight to Baghdad.
Mr Oswald Bindeeba, a veteran of the National Resistance Army, has spent 11 months in Iraq and is preparing to return. Sitting in Dreshak's sterile, poorly lit conference room, he produced a photo of his newly constructed home in Luzira. His family poses on the grass out front. He wants to start a dairy processing plant when he returns from his next tour of duty.
"Even though it is a war zone," he said, his eyes sharpening, "Iraq is a better option than Uganda."
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