KAMPALA – 23-year-old David Okidi is the winner of Nile Breweries Limited’s (NBL) annual entrepreneurship campaign dubbed ‘Be A Millionaire (BAM). Okidi, a fruit and vegetable farmer from Lira District tussled it out with four others at the grand finale, becoming the last man standing to win Shs 13 Million and a 50-inch screen TV.
At the finale quiz that went down on October 19 at Next Media Park in Naguru, Okidi answered three of the five questions, earning him Shs3million, and the grand prize of Shs10million.
Priscillah Kisakye, who came second won Shs 2million and a laptop, Kenneth Ojok who came third took home Shs2m and a phone, Emmanuel Etyak who came fourth won Shs1m and a phone.
Ronald Okurut, the fifth candidate came out with a consolation of Shs500,000 after failing to get on the scoreboard.
Speaking at the event, Francis Mondo Kyateka, the assistant commissioner for Youth at the Ministry of Gender thanked NBL for empowering young entrepreneurs through the campaign.
“We are happy as a government because every one job created makes a difference in terms of the multiplier effect. The rate of creating jobs for young people is still very low. We are at a time when we are implementing the Parish Development Model and we think that with it, poverty will be in history,” he shared.
Mr Mondo advised the winners to keep a low profile, stay humble and avoid being all over because of the money they have won.
“Money hates noise, we have seen some young people who have made some money and somehow it disappears in a flash. However, there are those who have real money but they never shout at the money and they have maintained it,”he said.
Mr Onapito Ekomoloit, the director of corporate affairs at Nile Breweries hailed the winners for making it to the grand finale.
He explained that the beer company thrives on innovation and that is why they came up with a campaign aimed at empowering young people.
“At Nile, we believe in creating an empowered population. We want to continue giving Ugandans the best. We promise the country as NBL that the best is yet to come, this is just the beginning,” he said, adding that all participants are winners since they have acquired a number of skills that will help them do greater things.
In her remarks, Harriet Ntabazi, the state Minister for trade congratulated the winners and thanked Enterprise Uganda for trainings that have changed lives of people in Uganda by boosting productivity, value addition and production.
“Uganda is built more on a private sector, we rely more on the private sector because we believe people can do much for themselves. I thank Nile Breweries for championing a life changing campaign.”
She called upon other private companies to come up with similar campaigns to supplement the government’s effort of empowering entrepreneurs.
