2019: Might it bring good news to Kampala from Juba, Kinshasa?

Twelve months is time long enough for much to happen in our never-boring country.
The bad — generalised corruption, poor service delivery, unhinged populist politics — will continue to define public life in Uganda in 2019. That is a given.
I hope, however, that some good will also happen. I am particularly interested in the positive stuff that may be inspired from the outside: South Sudan and DR Congo.
South Sudanese warring factions signed a peace deal late last year. Many of those who watch Juba closely think this time around the peace could hold.

A peaceful South Sudan, even if the country remains ill managed overall, is a good thing for Uganda.
The refugees will not come pouring into northern Uganda. And Ugandans will increase their business activities across the border.
A few weeks ago, I met a woman in her early thirties. Irene was barely out of university in Kampala when she accompanied her driver-brother to Juba in 2006, a year after the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement.

A planned two-day stay turned into a decade of living, trading, and thriving in South Sudan.
Then things unravelled in 2016. Fighting resumed because the peace deal meant to end the civil conflict that broke out in 2013 came undone.
Irene packed up and fled home. She lost hundreds of millions of shillings and much else. Luckily, she had built herself a nice house in Kampala, which is where she now lives.

Here, love for South Sudan has not died. She is keenly eyeing the recent rapprochement between the protagonists in Juba.
She can’t wait to get back over there and pick up the pieces and the cash, as it were.
And 2019 could just be the year that she resumes her business in Juba. “I love South Sudan,” Irene told me, with a smile that suggested she has overcome the losses she suffered when she left abruptly because of gunfire, death and mayhem everywhere. “There is money to be made.”
Many Ugandans have made their way back to South Sudan. Business is picking up again. The pineapples are crossing the border and so are used clothes and cars.

Those volumes could go up as more Irenes gain the confidence to re-enter South Sudan. As we all know, that is a very good thing for our economy.
If things go well in DR Congo too, Uganda could smile. That humongous mass of a country to our west is counting ballots after last weekend’s presidential election.
President Kabila Jr., having dodged leaving power when his term officially ended in 2016, is planning on finally departing. (I hope forever).
There is no gainsaying the importance to Uganda of DR Congo — which sits on natural wealth worth piles and piles and piles of dollars. (Even the mad Leopold II of Belgium couldn’t exhaust everything in his decades of plunder).

A peaceful DR Congo, like South Sudan, means no more refugees streaming across the border and piling pressure on our local communities.
More important, it means good business for Uganda. Yes, cartels of thieves will continue to steal cars in Uganda and send them across the border, but the chances that they will be caught may get higher. With that, legitimate business can flourish.
Ironically, DR Congo is organising its first peaceful transfer of power, something that still eludes peaceful Uganda. Maybe Uganda might see the light in this New Year on this point.