Nobody told us it would be easy. But nobody told us it would involve this many generator moments either.

If you have ever tried to really build a business in Uganda, you know the Monday morning feeling of checking the exchange rate and needing a cup of tea right away. You know that resilience here is not a leadership quality; it is a basic survival requirement. And yet. Here we are. Still standing, still building, still believing that the most exciting businesses on this continent are being built right now, by people who refused to wait for perfect conditions.

This newsletter is us getting to work on something we should have started a long time ago: telling our own story.

You might know us as a restaurant group. I know the food at Patio Bella, and the kidongo at The Villa is good enough to make that an easy assumption. But Hugamara is considerably larger than what you see on a Sunday afternoon.

Hugamara is a multi-sector investment and operating company, a holding group that builds, owns, and runs businesses across seven sectors: hospitality and lifestyle, technology and IT, finance and microfinance, logistics and security, real estate, agribusiness, and venture capital.

“We are in the business of building things that last, not things that chase a trend says CEO Ron Kawamara.’’ Things that are still here in twenty years, embedded in communities, creating value, and proving that African excellence is not something we are waiting for, it is something we are actively constructing.

Building in Uganda is hard. The exchange rate has opinions. The infrastructure has a sense of humour. The cost of importing equipment will make you sit down and have a very quiet conversation with yourself about your life choices.

We are not complaining. We are contextualising. Hugamara was not built in spite of this environment; it was built because of it. Every sector we operate in exists because there is a genuine gap, a genuine need, a genuine community of people who deserve better. We are not here to extract value from Uganda. We are here to multiply it.

Eateroo Kasanga and Patio Bella Bunga are not branches, and they are not photocopies of what came before. They are new chapters, each designed for the community it is entering, each carrying the standards that made the original locations worth talking about. Every neighbourhood in this city deserves world-class experiences. We are ready, and we cannot wait to open these doors.

No venture Hugamara has ever built was built by a strategy document. Everything was built by people.

The chef who treats every plate like their reputation depends on it. The security officer who arrives first and leaves last. The loan officer who looks a small business owner in the eye and says, with complete conviction, we believe in you. The developer is solving a problem at midnight that no one will ever know existed.

These are the people behind Hugamara. Not behind the scenes, behind everything. As we grow, one promise we make without hesitation: the people will always come first.

We want Hugamara to be a name that means something not just in Kampala, but across Africa. A name that young people point to and say, that is what African ambition looks like when it is disciplined, sustained, and refuses to shrink itself. Closing the gap between the Africa that exists and the Africa that is possible is not a dream we are saving for later. It is the work we are doing right now.

The Hugamara Dispatch is a conversation, not a broadcast.

“What does this city owe its builders?”

Reply and let us know. We are listening.

Until next time. Keep building.

The Hugamara Group