Ssempijja started retirement plan in 2000

Hajj Jamil Ssempijja, the proprietor of Maple Leaf Hotel in Masaka, has in the recent few years been the focus of public attention in the entire town as a fast-rising businessman.
The new hotel, as he has revealed, will open its doors to visitors in July.

Despite his growing fame, the retired accountant prefers to keep a low profile and although he is quite friendly, he lives a relatively modest social life.
Some people attribute this to his very busy work schedule he has to oversee the daily running activities of his different enterprises.

Ssempijja the businessman
He is the Airtel distributor in the territory of some nine districts that make up Masaka region. He is also the distributor of Pepsi Cola in the region besides owning commercial buildings and other properties whose management occupies much of his time.
He is now busy putting final touches on his magnificent 33-room Maple Leaf Hotel that he is determined to grow into a five-star hotel in the next few years.

Ambitions
As a child, Sunday Monitor has learned, Ssempijja -- now aged 54 -- had an ambition to become a trader. “My late father, Hajj Badru Lukyamuzi, would ask all of us his children what we wanted to be when we grew up,” Ssempijja says.
“I always told him that when I retire from civil service, I would become a trader just like him. Our father was a coffee trader. It was the reason I chose to study accounts and business administration when I went to Nkumba University,” Ssempijja adds.

Started planning early
“When I left Nkumba University in 1989, I set off right away to chase my dreams and as a way of helping me take off, my father lent me his weighing scale, which I went with to set up my personal business in Mutukula Town. Back then there was a lot of rice coming into Uganda from Tanzania,” Ssempijja explains.

Accountancy job
It was around that time that he learnt about a job advert in the Munno newspaper in which Masaka District Administration wanted to recruit accountants.
“I had the requisite qualifications and when I applied, I was interviewed along with many other applicants and finally I was taken on as an auditor,” he revealed.

Retail business
He still did not abandon his dream to become a trader because even after taking up his new job, he formed his own private company, Selco Enterprises, run by his wife.
“We began with a retail shop in Masaka Town before going into other ventures that included housing construction and we won several school construction tenders from the School Facility Grant (SFG) as well as supplying sundries to hospitals.

Raising capital was always a big challenge and we had to take bank loans, live frugally, and to save as much as we could.”
He was always conscious that soon or later the SFG programme would close and Selco Enterprises would perhaps be winning fewer contracts.

Pepsi Cola deal
In January 2003, he revealed this thinking to an old friend of his, Fulgensio Kayemba, who informed him that Pepsi Cola was actually looking for a distributor in the Greater Masaka region. He got into contact with Pepsi Cola national management.

“They needed somebody that could afford a cash security deposit of Shs60m and we had the cash. So in March, I made up my mind to take up the business. It required hard work and determination but I was determined to succeed and the profits did not take long, coming. In November the same year, I got to learn that another company, Celtel (now Airtel) was looking for a regional distributer ready to pay cash deposit of Shs10m.

We went for it straight away because we had the cash and despite the initial challenges the business quickly began to make profits. ”
He purchased some commercial buildings and some prime land in Masaka Town, apart from constructing his own residential house within the municipality. The Maple Leaf Hotel is another property resulting from the profits earned from his many enterprises.

Retires
He, however, soon found out that it was increasingly getting difficult to continue with his work as an auditor with Masaka District Administration and as a businessman. “There is a lot of cash collected all the time and because it is handled by human beings, it is easy for them to be tempted to take some of it without the employer’s knowledge. So, careful and constant supervision are important. I therefore began processing my retirement from the civil service to take over active physical supervision of the businesses,” Ssempijja says.

Achievements
He has not only earned profits but he has also excelled as a marketer of both Pepsi Cola and Airtel products. He has won awards in form of cars, motorcycles as well as fully-paid-for holiday trips to such countries as Thailand, Malaysia, the Netherlands and South Africa.
He has also visited Sweden, China, Denmark, and the United Arab Emirates.

Challenges
“As I have pointed out earlier there is a lot of cash to be handled most of the time and this makes the business premises a target for robbers. So we constantly worry about our personal security. Secondly, we have a lot of cars and trucks which sometimes break down, requiring repairs whose costs often go beyond what we had budgeted for.”

He also worries about the continuity of his business empire for which reason he has appointed two of his children, Moses Mutagubya and Saad Katongole, and a nephew, Bashir Ssemaganda as his assistants.

Ssempijja was born at Ninzi Village in Kasaali Sub-county, Kyotera District. He attended Kiyimba Primary School, Kirembwe Primary School, Kakoma Secondary School and Kampala High School before going to Nkumba University where he earned a Higher Diploma in Business Administration.