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How a Failed Bid and a Vanished Sugar Empire Forged One of East Africa’s Most Trusted Consulting Firms.
A story of questions, setbacks, persistence and a calling to strengthen the enterprises that fight poverty.
In Kampala’s crowded markets and along the dusty trading roads of the region, there have always been two kinds of businesspeople: those with a good idea, and those with a good idea and the money to make it real. For most of Africa’s small and medium enterprises, the gap between the two has been a canyon.
Daniel Bukenya Yiga set out to build a bridge across it.
It began with a question that seemed simple: why can’t good small businesses get money?
Daniel had watched capable entrepreneurs, with loyal customers, farmers with proven business models and young innovators with working prototypes, walk into banks with hope and walk out with nothing. At first he assumed the problem was the lenders. But the deeper he dug, the more the problems multiplied.
Each answer opened onto a new question, until what looked like a single locked door turned out to be an entire corridor of them:
Many enterprises were unregistered, operating outside the systems that lenders rely on to see and trust a business.
Without bookkeeping, financial statements or tax records, even profitable businesses could not prove they were profitable.
Banks demanded land titles and hard assets that most entrepreneurs, especially women and young people, simply did not own.
Where loans existed, high interest rates and short repayment periods crushed the very businesses they were meant to lift.
Sound ideas arrived without the business plans, cash-flow projections and market evidence that investors need to say yes.
Founder-run businesses often lacked the systems, succession plans and accountability structures that give financiers confidence.
First-time borrowers had no track record, and so no way to build one.
Financial products were designed for salaried workers and large corporates, not for seasonal farmers or growing enterprises.
Entrepreneurs often did not know what financing existed, what it cost, or how to prepare for it.
Loan applications disappeared into weeks and months of paperwork, and many businesses died waiting.
It was a rabbit hole, and at the bottom of it lay a single truth. Access to finance was never just about money. It was about readiness: long processes, deep needs, and the patient, skilled work of preparing enterprises to meet capital halfway. Someone had to do that work.
The moment of decision came in December 2011. Lutalo Fred, an old friend, brought word of an opportunity: African Evangelistic Enterprise was seeking a firm to train 100 entrepreneurs.
To compete, Daniel needed more than conviction. He needed a company. So he registered one, Amani Consulting, the seed of what would become Goldstone Enterprise Consulting and Training. The company’s vintage and thin team then disadvantaged Daniel and he did not get the deal.
That the very first call to duty came from an evangelistic ministry was not lost on him. In hindsight it sounded almost prophetic: a summon for this company to be a kingdom business. It would labour for the good of humanity and the souls of men, and it would measure success in lives changed.
Yes Daniel did not win the job! But, a company had been born, and with it a calling that would outlast the rejection.
The proposed Gemeiza Sugar project
A massive sugar project in South Sudan intended to transform the economy.
The second call was of a scale few young firms ever encounter.
In the newly independent Republic of South Sudan, an investor envisioned the largest sugar plant in the region at Gemeiza. It was a USD 1.2 billion undertaking that could transform the economy of a nation barely out of war. Daniel was drawn into the effort to bring it to life by an Indian Friend and owner of the project.
He assembled an unlikely coalition of friends from enterprise development, the civil service, the political arena and the governance space. Financiers were identified in Canada and South Africa. The financing structure was ambitious: a loan backed by a sovereign guarantee secured against the country’s oil.
What followed was a season of relentless motion. There were shuttles to Juba, negotiations late into the night, and patient navigation through the approval machinery of both the Central Equatoria State Government and the national government in Juba. The work also reached Singapore, where Brian Jjemba, then a young member of the team, travelled to carry out due diligence on a prospective financier.
Then the ground shifted beneath them. As Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan bombarded South Sudan’s oil fields through 2011 and into 2012, the very asset meant to back the guarantee came under fire. The team pressed on regardless, pushing the guarantee through each stage of approval, and came within reach of the finish line.
In December 2013, war broke out in South Sudan.
In a matter of days, the nation’s hopes for this project came to a halt, and the dreams of a young consulting firm stopped with them.
A lesser founder might have walked away. Daniel instead kept the flame alive. He balanced corporate work with Yunus Social Business as Head of Investment and Acceleration with consulting on the side, sharpening his craft and deepening his networks.
In December 2017, he jumped in with both feet, committing full-time to building the company.
The clients came, and with them came proof.
The first was UNCDF, under its CleanStart programme in renewable energy. Next came MSINGI East Africa, in aquaculture. Then UNICEF and UNCDF jointly, in the emerging field of Early Childhood Development enterprises. Each engagement was a vote of confidence, and each opened a new sector where Goldstone could turn its understanding of enterprise finance into results. The defining engagement was the study that Goldstone Consulting did for GOGLA accros East Africa, where Goldstone worked hand-in-glove with the National Renewable Energy Associations of Uganda, Kenya,Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.
Momentum attracts talent. In 2020, Godwin Othieno and Ben Kasozi joined the firm. In 2021 came Brian Jjemba, who had been part of the South Sudan effort years earlier and had since built his career in SME financing. In 2023, Peace Akello joined, further strengthening the lead team.
Today, Goldstone Enterprise Consulting and Training Limited sits comfortably within the top ten percent of consulting firms in Uganda.
It operates in several countries across Eastern and Southern Africa, most often by invitation from organisations that have already tested its services.
The numbers tell part of the story. Goldstone has supported the mobilisation of more than USD 150 million for SMEs, cooperatives and corporate institutions across its areas of operation. Its work spans the sectors where enterprise and human dignity meet most directly: Energy, Education, Agribusiness, Tourism and Health.
But the name tells the rest. Gold is not found lying on the surface; it is dug from stone and refined by fire. Goldstone was shaped the same way. It went through a lost first bid, a billion-dollar dream silenced by war, and years of quiet persistence before the breakthrough.
Enterprises Supported with business development services
Jobs Created through the impact of our programs & services
Youth Trained & Empowered to carry out successful businesses
Women-Led Businesses supported through our investment readiness programs
Partnerships in the enterprise ecosystem
The calling first heard in December 2011 has not changed. Goldstone remains a business with a mission beyond profit: “To fight poverty by strengthening the enterprises that fight it every day.”
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