Walk into any small shop in Kampala on a Friday evening and you’ll find the real CEO—not the manager, not the cashier—but the owner’s hand in the till.
“Just give me 200k, I’ll replace it on Monday,” he says with confidence. Monday comes, the money never returns, and the business limps into the new week with broken cash flow.
This is the silent cancer eating many Ugandan businesses: owners who love their businesses but keep stealing from them. We don’t call it theft because, well, it’s “my money, my shop, my sweat.”
But truth be told, many enterprises die not because of competition, bad staff, or even taxes—but because the owner is their own biggest risk. The very person meant to protect the business becomes the one suffocating it.
Take Peter in Kyaliwajjala. He runs a thriving spare parts shop. Business is good, stock moves fast, and profits flow steadily. But Peter has never paid himself a salary.
Instead, every time he wants to fuel his Prado, pay his kids’ school fees, or impress friends at the bar, he dips into the shop’s till.
To him, the business account is his ATM. Months later, suppliers stop trusting him, debts pile up, and the same shop that could have grown into a second branch is barely staying afloat.
Peter didn’t need a competitor to kill his business—he did it himself.
I know a lady in Mbarara who runs a salon. She is excellent at her craft, clients love her, and the chairs are always full. But her business is forever broke.
Why? She buys groceries for her home from the day’s collections, pays her sister’s medical bills with the business float, and even funds her weekend trips to Kigali from the same account.
One day I asked her, “Why not pay yourself a salary and separate it?” She laughed and said, “But it’s my money!” Her staff watch in silence as the business struggles to pay rent.
The saddest part is that when the salon finally closes, it won’t just hurt her—it will leave her employees jobless and her loyal clients stranded.
And this is what I call the missing firewall. In technology, a firewall protects your computer from viruses and attacks. In business, a firewall protects your enterprise from the most dangerous virus: you, the owner.
Without that firewall—systems, discipline, and structure—you will always be tempted to mix personal needs with business money. And when you do, you slowly bleed your cow until it collapses.
Everywhere I go, especially because I sit in the lending industry, I hear these stories. A boda rider in Nateete came for a loan to expand his spare parts stall.
I asked him why the shop’s money was always short. He chuckled, “Sometimes after work I pass by my boys, and eh… you know how it goes.”
He was funding his nightlife directly from the shop. On paper, the stall looked promising. In practice, it was feeding his social life. By December, the shelves were empty and the suppliers had written him off.
Or take the young couple in Kireka who opened a mini-supermarket. Profits were steady, but they never paid themselves properly.
Every diaper, every loaf of bread, every soda at home came straight from the shop. “We’ll replace it when we can,” they would say.
But they never did. They didn’t realize they were slowly consuming their own capital. Six months later, the shelves were half-empty, the rent unpaid, and the landlord locked them out.
The problem was not the business—it was them.
The collapse of your business is never a private funeral. It buries employees, suppliers, clients, and even your reputation along with it.
That’s why building a firewall is not just wise; it’s a moral duty. Once you understand that your business is bigger than you, you begin to see the weight of responsibility.
When you starve it, you are not just hurting yourself—you are hurting every family that depends on it.
I met a gentleman in Jinja who runs a hardware shop. He told me openly that he doesn’t touch a single shilling from the till unless it is processed as his salary.
Even when school fees are due, he waits until the month’s end to receive his pay. “At first it was tough,” he admitted. “But now, it has given me peace.” Today, his business has grown into three branches, each with its own manager.
He can afford emergencies comfortably because he has built discipline. He built a firewall.
Contrast that with a young banker I once advised. She earns a steady salary of Shs 3 million per month, but instead of treating it as her cow, she channelled it into her “passion project”—a bakery. Every shilling that was meant for her savings, her investments, even her personal cushion, went into the bakery.
Flour prices rose, electricity bills bit harder, and the bakery kept swallowing her income. Soon, she was borrowing just to survive.
Her salary—the cow—was starved until it could no longer support her. This is how even employees can become their own business risk.
Last week, I wrote about killing your cow to feed a dog. This week I will tell you this: many cows don’t even get to the dog. They are slaughtered right in the kraal by the very farmer who should be milking them.
And once you kill your cow, there is no milk, no calves, and no future.
Entrepreneurs in Uganda are full of ideas, full of energy, and full of dreams. But without discipline and structure, those dreams become nightmares.
Every time you dip into your business for impulse spending, ask yourself: am I feeding the future, or eating it alive? Am I building a legacy, or am I robbing my own shop?
Protect your business from yourself. Pay yourself like an employee. Respect the systems you create. Let your staff see you submit to discipline so they too can respect it.
Because when your business thrives, it doesn’t just benefit you—it feeds families, creates jobs, and serves your community.
If you don’t protect your business from yourself, no one else will. Don’t be the thief who robs his own shop. Build the firewall.
The President is Money Lenders Association of Uganda, CEO & Founder, Jonakee Holdings Limited.
