From Kinpreneurship to Entrepreneurship: Uganda’s Path Forward

Can we deliver to the principles of entrepreneurship and not kinpreneurship?

Fellow country men and women, when a plane crashes, everyone on the metal tube, devoid of class, incinerates including those in first-class. Oh Uganda! may God uphold thee,…

In this land, the Pearl of Africa’s Crown, we practice kinpreneurship, doing what we believe is only human – passing favours to our blood relatives and friends. But in that lies the total undermining of the principles of enterprise, hard work and more so, accountability. The lack of accountability is the driver of impunity and accompanying evil. The latter is our nightmare, blinded for the time being, by the feel-good factor and aloofness to the fact that when the enterprise-system totally collapses, even the islands currently feeling-good shall suffer the pain. Again, when a plane crashes, every class on the metal tube burns, including first-class.

Uganda stands at crossroads. As we look into the mirror of our national conscience, we must confront a troubling reality: we have allowed “kinpreneurship” – access to enterprise factors based on blood relations rather than merit, to eclipse true entrepreneurship. This vice threatens not only our economic progress but our very soul as a nation striving for excellence.

The Weight of Corruption’s Shadow

The numbers paint a stark picture. Uganda scored just 26 out of 100 on Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking 140th among 180 countries. More damning still, widespread perceptions of corruption erode public trust in government institutions. Ugandans overwhelmingly perceive corruption as endemic, with citizens believing that “some,” “most,” or “all” officials across government levels are engaged in corrupt practices.

But corruption in Uganda isn’t merely about stolen funds – it’s about stolen dreams. Nepotism has become endemic across all levels of government and society. This institutionalization of kinship over competence has cascaded throughout our institutions, creating a culture where family connections determine opportunities rather than merit.

The impact extends beyond government into public service recruitment, which has been marred by corruption, with bribes, nepotism, and favoritism becoming the norm, some district local governments officials demanding huge sums of money in exchange for jobs. This systematic corruption in hiring means qualified candidates are routinely passed over for those with the right connections.

The Erosion of Excellence

When kinship trumps competence, excellence becomes an endangered species. Award by excellence; that sacred principle where the best person gets the opportunity, has been systematically dismantled. Instead, we’ve created a malformed marketplace where family trees matter more than competence, where blood relations open doors that talent cannot.

This undermines the very foundation of quality work. When positions are filled based on who you know rather than what you know, incompetence becomes institutionalized. Public officeholders are often appointed not based on merit but through nepotism and cronyism, leading to widespread incompetence and corruption among the political elite.

The result? Sacrifice of quintessence; brilliance is the new low-grade; the straightest are disdained and devoured; severe weaknesses in implementing policies, especially those related to progress and development no longer weigh heavily on the conscience of the people. We have given up!

Can we truly call ourselves professional anymore when professionalism itself has been commodified and corrupted? When the very institutions meant to uphold standards have become breeding grounds for mediocrity?

The Cruel Mathematics of Merit

What incentive exists for remaining professional in such an environment? The rewards for integrity have been inverted. Those who refuse to participate in kinpreneurship face disdain, ridicule, stagnation or total annihilation. If you’re in business and refuse to play by these twisted rules, you face collapse and bankruptcy while watching inferior competitors thrive through connections.

The fundamental promise of hard work, that effort will be rewarded, is shattered. Why would anyone toil when others receive accolades and social and economic rewards on a silver platter? This creates a vicious cycle where talent surrenders and mutes itself, leaving behind a hollowed-out system that rewards the wrong behaviours.

Young Ugandans, witnessing this perversion of merit, face a terrible choice: compromise their values to succeed, or maintain their integrity and accept marginalization. Too many are choosing the former, perpetuating the cycle that diminishes us all.

Global Isolation and Uganda’s ‘Thinking-Recession’

Perhaps most tragically, our kinpreneurship values are making us outcasts in a world that increasingly demands competence, innovation and aggressive thinking. Can we become part of the global whole, that community of nations attempting to do right, when we operate by our own flipped value system and have been forced into a thinking-recession.

International investors, development partners, and global markets operate on principles of merit, transparency, and predictable governance. When we present them with systems built on nepotism and favoritism, we signal that we are not serious partners. This isolation comes at a tremendous cost: reduced foreign investment, diminished international credibility, and exclusion from global value chains that could transform our economy.

The world has moved toward merit-based systems not out of abstract idealism, but because these systems work. They produce better outcomes, foster innovation, and create sustainable prosperity. By clinging to kinpreneurship, we are choosing to be left behind.

Molding Our Future; Yes, Keep The Faith!

What are we molding for our progress as a people, our offspring, and our place in the world? When we normalize nepotism, we teach our children that relationships matter more than excellence. We create a generation that expects success without merit, connections without competence.

Our youth observe adult society and internalize these lessons. If we continue on this path, we will raise a generation that sees corruption as normal, that believes success comes from who you know rather than what you can contribute. This moral inheritance will poison their potential and perpetuate our national stagnation for decades to come.

We are literally stealing from our future selves, taking opportunities away from tomorrow’s Uganda to benefit today’s cronies.

Let’s Return to First Principles

We need to get back to first principles; to reorient from kinpreneurship to entrepreneurship values. True entrepreneurship is built on several foundational principles:

(i) Merit above relationships: The best idea, the most qualified person, the highest quality product should win, regardless of family connections.

(ii) Innovation over inheritance: Progress comes from creating new value, not redistributing existing connections. Let’s end our thinking-recession.

(iii) Accountability and transparency: Success must be measurable and decisions must be defendable on their merits.

(iv) Risk and reward alignment: Those who take risks and create value should reap rewards proportional to their contribution.

(v) Ethical competition: Markets work best when competition is fair and rules apply equally to all participants.

These principles aren’t Western imports, they are universal truths that enable human flourishing. They exist in our traditional systems of craftsmanship, where the best blacksmith/fundi earned respect through skill, not bloodline.

The Path Forward

Reorienting from kinpreneurship to entrepreneurship requires both institutional and cultural change. We must:

(i) Institutionalise merit-based systems: Create transparent processes for hiring, promotion, and awarding contracts. Implement blind review processes where possible and require justification for all significant appointments.

(ii) Celebrate entrepreneurial success: Publicly honor those who succeed through innovation and hard work, not connections. Make entrepreneurs our role models.

(iii) Educate for excellence: Teach our children that competence is the highest virtue and that shortcuts through connections ultimately diminish both the individual and society.

(iv) Demand accountability: As citizens, we must refuse to accept the normalization of nepotism. We must challenge it wherever we encounter it and support leaders who demonstrate genuine commitment to merit.

(v) Build alternative systems: Create parallel institutions: businesses, organizations, and networks, that operate on entrepreneurial rather than kinpreneurial principles.

The cost of inaction is stagnation. The reward for transformation is a Uganda that can compete globally, innovate locally, and provide genuine opportunity for all its children based on their efforts and abilities, not their surnames.

Oooh Uganda, May God Uphold Thee…

Our national anthem’s plea takes on new urgency in this context. For God to uphold Uganda, we must first uphold the values that make us worthy of divine blessing. These values include justice, fairness, hard work, and integrity. Precisely the values that kinpreneurship destroys.

We must choose between two futures: one where our children succeed based on their merit and contributions, and another where they are trapped in cycles of corruption and mediocrity. The choice seems obvious, but making it requires courage. The courage to reject the easy path of kinpreneurship and embrace the challenging but rewarding path of true entrepreneurship.

Uganda has the talent, the resources, and the potential to thrive. What we need now is the moral courage to align our practices with our possibilities. Only then can we truthfully sing our anthem’s final line and expect divine blessing on our efforts.

The Effectiveness Lab, for The People

To our leaders and the people, isn’t the time for kinpreneurship over? Shouldn’t the era of sustained entrepreneurship begin today?