Walk into any mall in Kampala, say Acacia, and you’ll notice something. The Indians are not just shopping. They are teaching.
You’ll see a father walking with his teenage son, not just holding ice cream, but standing behind the till or quietly observing how customers are served.
Meanwhile, during the school holidays, many Ugandan parents are away “checking on investments that don’t even bring in steady profits”plots of idle land, half-finished houses, or farms with more sentiment than cash flow.
This is not a cultural attack or competition. It is an honest reflection. While one community is weaving its children into the fabric of its businesses, many of us are unknowingly preparing our children to inherit money they will squander and assets they will sell sometimes over a quick WhatsApp call from overseas.
Indians rarely take their children to boarding schools. Why? Because they understand legacy is not built in absentia. Holidays are not just for visiting relatives.
They are for induction into the family business. A child learns how to count stock, how to negotiate, and how to greet a client with respect.
By the time that child is 18, they don’t just know the business, they feel it in their blood.
We, on the other hand, are quick to ship off our children as early as possible. Even in pre-primary, the boarding school bug bites.
And when holidays arrive, what do we do? We keep them entertained but far from our business struggles. We are raising highly educated children who can recite algebra and Shakespeare, but who cannot balance a cashbook or tell whether a supplier is cheating them.
I’ve seen it too many times in lending. A successful parent builds a transport company with 10 trucks. When that parent dies, the children sell off the trucks one by one, sometimes at a throwaway price, because they neither understand the business nor care about it.
To them, liquid cash today is sweeter than steady revenue tomorrow. I remember a family in Ntinda whose father ran a wholesale shop for 25 years. Loyal customers knew him by name.
When he passed on, his children, who had grown up in boarding schools and studied abroad, came back, looked at the shop, and said, “We don’t want stress.” Within a month, the shop was gone. Yet that business could have outlived them and even funded their grandchildren’s education.
Meanwhile, the Indian family across the street runs a hardware store started by their grandfather. Today, three generations later, it has branches in Kampala, Jinja, and Mbarara. Their secret? Legacy is taught, not assumed.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not dismissing our love for land and livestock. But here’s the bitter truth: if your farm is not generating cash flow, it’s a hobby, not an investment.
Too many Ugandans tie up wealth in idle land or sentimental projects. And when the children inherit, the first thing they do is sell it. Because they were never part of the vision.
Now imagine a child who grows up seeing you run a shop in Owino, counting coins, collecting payments, negotiating with suppliers.
That child will not easily abandon the enterprise, because they have sweat equity in it. They will carry both the memory and the discipline of building something brick by brick.
Legacy doesn’t just happen—it is intentional. It is carrying your child along when you go to check on your shop instead of leaving them at home scrolling TikTok.
It is letting your teenage son sit quietly in a Monday staff meeting just to listen. It is explaining to your daughter why you chose to reinvest profits rather than buy a new car.
And above all, it is showing them that business is not just about money it is about values. Discipline. Integrity. Hard work. Respect for staff. If all they see is you dipping into the till for weekend plans, what will they copy?
Uganda is full of first-generation millionaires whose stories could end in one generation if we don’t change course. We owe it to ourselves, and to the children coming after us, to involve them early.
Not in a way that robs them of childhood, but in ways that plant seeds of responsibility.
So next time you’re at Garden City or Acacia and you see an Indian father walking with his child, don’t just see leisure. See strategy.
Because while many of us are busy managing investments that bring no profit, they are raising heirs. While we are tying our wealth in idle assets, they are tying their children’s future to businesses that will stand long after they are gone.
And here is the simple truth: if you don’t raise heirs, you will raise strangers. And strangers do not protect your legacy—they sell it.
The Author President, Money Lenders Association of Uganda CEO & Founder, Jonakee Holdings Limited From the Lending Desk