Uganda, May 3 -- In his heyday, the Good African coffee honcho, Andrew Rugasira, was quite popular on Kampala's conference speaking circuit. He was - and rightly so - the authority on doing business in Uganda as a Ugandan, especially if you are producing for the export market.

He often talked about the farmers who grew and supplied the coffee, saying how most of the homesteads from which they came were those classified as living below a dollar a day. He would marvel at the creativity and effort it required for anyone to survive below a dollar a day. At the time, the dollar was about Shs2,500.

Rugasira's in many ways, was the story of local enterprise. Creative, ambitious, and resilient. But, on your own. His business looked like it was ...