By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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For the last 3.5 years of the last century and the first 3.5 years in the new millennium, I sat on a committee that met weekly to plot the growth of the New Vision, Uganda’s biggest publishing enterprise. Our boss, the British expat called William Pike, who used to chair the meetings and held the combined offices of managing director and editor-in-chief, was the most decisive person I had ever met.

That was the time of rapid technology shifts in the world and New Vision was determined to enter the new millennium on the right foot.

The physical establishment was being remodelled for the new times and, for a while, we agonised over where to locate the darkroom, as the technical people presented unsatifactory options. Then Pike abruptly ruled on the location: Nowhere! There would be no darkroom!

That was a quarter of a century ago when photography was still very much a film-and-negative affair. Today, nobody calls any camera a digital camera anymore, because all cameras are digital.

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Two weeks of reading tweets and news reports from the meeting of Kenya’s William Ruto and Raila Odinga at President Yoweri Museveni’s farm in Uganda brings back memories of that meeting years ago when New Vision, at that time 100 percent government-owned, decided to bite the technology bullet and jump out of the Kodak era comfort zone.

Kampala was last month about to take a similar bite in face of Nairobi’s determination to protect its middlemen’s incomes by refusing to license Uganda National Oil Company to import its oil through Mombasa and using Kenya-based infrastructure. Uganda had actually started bracing for the temporary inconvenience that would follow “ditching the darkroom and go digital” to use the New Vision turn-of-the-millennium analogy. But the leap won’t happen.

From commentaries we read, mostly by Kenya analysts, Brother Ruto needed to get formidable challenger Raila Odinga out of town for a few years by sending him to a prestigious Siberia in Addis Ababa, and a petroleum import carrot was dangled to Kampala in exchange for backing Raila’s comfortable “deportation” to the African Union for a job he doesn’t need (Raila is a child of old money).

That is what some Kenyan analysts told us. It seems Kampala looked at its “spoilt” citizens who would weep for a couple of years over reduced fuel supplies trickling in through Tanzania at higher prices until superior transport powering systems got established, and capitulated to Ruto’s carrot, it seems. Meanwhile, we look at Tanzania’s newly launched electric train service with envy.

We cannot go into further speculation beyond what the Kenyan analysts said, for we don’t know even a tiny fraction of what President Museveni knows. He has to weigh a hundred and one variable demands — some local, others external — and come out with the most informed decision. Raila got his endorsement and Uganda’s transport technology leap can wait.

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Still, those who believe in a clean energy transition shouldn’t lose hope. Uganda is still committed to the transition, from the public investments we see going on, only we are not going into it full throttle.

In the meantime, it would help if Kampala sent its experts to Ethiopia and see what is going on with the city public transport based on the light rail. Kampala also needs to check out some developments in Nairobi, which include Kenya Airways’ successful trials to fly huge birds (Boeing 787-800 Dreamline) using (clean) biofuel.

A time should come when all Uganda Airlines’ flights out of Entebbe are powered by Sustainable Aviation Fuel grown by our farmers. And there is that deal Kenya struck in Brussels that will see Nairobi get dedicated routes for clean mobility.

If Kenya did it, Uganda can also “did” it!