In 1996, billionaire businessman Sudhir Ruparelia was running Premier Lottery, a business that excited Kampala and sparked scepticism in equal measure. His son Rajiv was only five—far from the man whose life would later end tragically on a poorly maintained highway built under the very government that enabled his father’s fortune.
That year Mr Ruparelia travelled to the districts of Jinja and Mbale with a team of journalists who were covering grand draws in which winners were getting shs50m.
On the Mbale trip, Mr Ruparelia’s children travelled with him and were flaunting sophisticated toys that grabbed the attention of onlookers.
The Indian-Ugandan entrepreneur had started doing a roaring business. Premier Lottery, located just a stone’s throw from Kampala Boulevard on Kampala Road, sold thousands of tickets, with buyers scratching to reveal winning numbers for instant cash and car prizes.
On the same street, Mr Ruparelia ran a forex bureau called Crane Forex Bureau. In 1991, five years after Museveni had seized power, Mr Ruparelia grabbed headlines over alleged financial impropriety related to that forex bureau. He weathered the storm and carried on.
Some Ugandans speculated the lottery was fake. A year after it closed, they said, it was hard to find anyone with a car they had won. Some alleged that the cars were taken back to Mr Ruparelia who in turn gave the winners money. In other words, the winners did not win the cars.
But Mr Ruparelia’s empire expanded, and his links to the Museveni government grew stronger. He bought land in Kampala’s prime locations and built apartments and commercial buildings in central Kampala.
He helped build Speke Resort Munyonyo, partly funded by the government, a symbol of public-private cooperation. He bought a radio station, Sanyu FM, opened Victoria University and Crane Bank, where he had a controlling stake, although the bank failed and was acquired by DFCU.
The classic example of Mr Ruparelia’s deep connection with the Museveni regime comes from a viral video featuring Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju. In it, the MP reels off what he claims are massive monthly rent payments from various government ministries to Mr Ruparelia.
After the Rajiv accident, Daily Monitor reported that the contractor who was working on the unfinished road abandoned the project last October because of payment delays. Imagine the difference it would have made if the road was completed in time and the barriers removed.
While a closer analysis reveals inconsistencies in Mr Ssemujju’s maths, the fact remains Mr Ruparelia’s business empire has undeniably flourished under Mr Museveni’s rule.
But the regime can also be blamed for what is arguably Mr Ruparelia’s most devastating loss since he returned to Uganda: the tragic death of his son Ravij in a car crash. Aged only 35, he was in the prime of his life.
At the same highway spot where Rajiv’s Nissan GT-R hit concrete barriers, flew in the air and burst into flames, many road users have perished largely because of those barriers—but the government has not removed them.
Junior Youth minister Balaam Barugahara said another person died at the same spot hours after Rajiv’s death. The barriers are removed when the government is expecting visiting foreign dignitaries. Once the dignitaries leave, they are put back.
After the Rajiv accident, Daily Monitor reported that the contractor who was working on the unfinished road abandoned the project last October because of payment delays. Imagine the difference it would have made if the road was completed in time and the barriers removed.
There is a general decay of infrastructure in and around Kampala. Traffic lights work part-time. Electricity fails in many parts of Kampala, and some suburbs go without power for 24 hours.
Many city roads are impassable. Campaigners and activists, using photos of roads with potholes on social media, have tried to draw the government’s attention to the infrastructure question to no avail.
The city is chaotic, dirty, disorganised, dusty, muddy. At a recent event to commission a flyover built by the Japanese government, Mr Museveni criticised the city’s leadership, saying he was seeing flies (Luganda/English) everywhere in Kampala, including at the very venue where he was speaking from.
As a businessman, Mr Ruparelia knows which side of his bread is buttered and has been reluctant to criticise the regime—even as its failures cost citizens lives. But now, in the cruellest twist of fate, he is dealing with bereavement.
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.
Email: musaazinamiti@ojuganda.com
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