East Africans drive business in “boom town” Juba

June 13, 2006 (JUBA, southern Sudan) — Every night, Rafa Ali pushes crates of soft drinks to one side of her tiny iron shack in Juba and lies down to sleep, a long way from home.

The 22-year-old Ugandan is just one of thousands of entrepreneurs who have flooded into Southern Sudan’s capital since a peace deal last year ended Africa’s longest civil war.

They say the town — once a garrison cut off from the outside world during two decades of fighting — is now booming with business opportunities, but not for the faint-hearted.

“Life here is so much better than in Arua,” Ali says, referring to her home across the border in northwestern Uganda.

“At least here we can make a little money. Every time I go home, there are more people asking me to bring them here too.”

Blisteringly hot, Juba is home to a quarter of a million people at the centre of one of the poorest places on earth.

Guns are rife, poverty is endemic, and vast tracts of the surrounding bush are studded with deadly, invisible landmines.

DRILLING AND HAMMERING

But nearly 18 months after the former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) signed a peace deal with the Khartoum government, investors now see profit in the south.

Despite delays implementing the agreement, many say they are increasingly confident peace will hold. Last month Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) became the first international bank to set up shop in the area. It opened branches in Juba and Rumbek and plans two more in Yambio and Yei, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Harun Kibogong, the Kenyan business development manager for KCB in Sudan, says the fastest growing sectors are the provision of basic commodities, construction and renovation.

“Everywhere you go around here now you hear drilling and hammering,” he says at his air-conditioned office in Juba.

Showing the dire lack of accommodation, Kibogong — like almost every well-heeled visitor to Juba — stays at a camp by the Nile, where a tent with basic amenities costs $100 a night.

For those on a tighter budget, life is tough.

FEARFUL

“Food is expensive and housing is a big problem. Many of us sleep in the open,” says Abdullah Ramadhan, a 28-year-old Ugandan who describes himself as a business agent.

He says he and his colleagues make up to 25 percent profit on each 4-wheel-drive vehicle they buy in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, and drive 500 km (300 miles) north to re-sell in Juba.

Their rugged cars are much in demand on Juba’s potholed streets, but despite the rewards, the Ugandans remain jittery.

Stoking those fears a few weeks ago, a fire at an armoury on the edge of town triggered a series of explosions that shook buildings for more than an hour.

“People thought war had returned. They were running, shouting, hiding under anything they could,” Ramadhan says, sitting with friends on a stack of timber in the shade.

They laugh now, but he and others fled back to Uganda that day, only returning when they were sure it was safe.

In a place where the shells of destroyed armoured cars lie rusting in the weeds outside government offices, and anti-aircraft guns still squat on the roof of the small international airport, anything seemed possible, they say.

Two million people were killed in the war which ended after southern rebels — mainly Christians and followers of traditional African religions — and the Islamic northern government signed a power and wealth sharing deal in January 2005.

That conflict was separate from the ongoing fighting between rebels and government forces in the western Darfur, where tens of thousands have been killed and around 2.5 million driven from their homes.

“VIRGIN BUSINESS TOWNS”

Also braving the aftermath of the north-south war in search of trade are investors from Somalia, Ethiopia and Congo. But Ugandans make up the majority, and much of Juba is distinctly Ugandan, from the products on sale in markets to the music played in bars.

“Kampala-style” roast meat is top of the menu at a popular Juba Internet cafe, where youths play pool and watch football on satellite television, or Ugandan music videos on DVDs.

Underlining the powerful southern influence further, Juba staged its first big peacetime pop concert last month: Jose Chameleone, the gravel-voiced Ugandan singer, topped the bill.

Articles in Ugandan papers about southern Sudan’s “virgin business towns” have persuaded many to head north. Word of mouth has encouraged others. But few say they will stay permanently.

“Things are a bit fine here, but when I get capital I will definitely leave and set up a shop back at home,” says Ali, pausing to wave flies away from a plastic basin of dough.

As well as cold drinks from a fridge carried by bus from Uganda, she sells pancakes, imported vegetables and other food.

“Business here is getting tougher. If you don’t have your own transport you get undercut by the ones who do, and they are coming more and more now these days since it is calm.”

(Reuters)