Uganda’s agricultural trading company Aponye (U) Limited is pursuing a recovery strategy focused on stronger corporate governance, operational stability and market diversification following a period of uncertainty after the death of its founder, Apollo Nyegamehe.
The company, which built its business around grain trading and agricultural supply chains, is seeking to restore confidence among creditors, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders while strengthening the systems needed to sustain its operations.
The recovery effort is being overseen by the board, chaired by Silajji Baguma Kanyesigye, and implemented by a management team led by Managing Director Annet Twebaze.
Rather than prioritising rapid expansion, the leadership says the immediate focus is on stabilising the business, improving accountability and broadening its customer base.
For a company that has operated in Uganda’s agricultural value chain for nearly four decades, the stakes extend beyond its commercial performance. Aponye’s activities include grain aggregation, storage, processing, transportation and distribution, linking farmers to institutional buyers and other markets.
Baguma took over as board chairman during a difficult period for the company, when financial pressures and creditor demands had raised questions about its future.
He says the board’s priority has been to strengthen oversight and restore confidence in the company’s ability to meet its commitments, while leaving day-to-day operations to management.
“Our duty is to set policies and guide management so that they do the right thing,” Baguma said, describing the rebuilding of relationships with customers as central to the recovery effort.
He said the company needed to ensure that commitments made to customers and partners were consistently fulfilled.
“My biggest trade is trust. That is the trust I am trying to build in Aponye so that people out there trust the products, trust what we promise and know we can deliver,” he said.
Baguma said the company had made progress in engaging financiers, suppliers and development partners, although the scale and financial impact of the recovery have not been quantified.
The board’s approach reflects a broader effort to establish stronger institutional systems and reduce reliance on informal relationships in managing commercial transactions.
Twebaze, who has spent 14 years at Aponye, is leading the operational changes. Her experience spans periods of growth as well as the company’s more recent difficulties.
She said the next three to five years would focus on stabilising operations, rebuilding the brand and strengthening relationships with stakeholders.
“I have lived through the company's best years and its most difficult ones,” Twebaze said. “The challenges the company has faced have developed my skills. I have developed my resilience.”
The strategy also involves diversifying revenue sources beyond a concentration of institutional buyers, while retaining established customers.
Twebaze said Aponye needed to compete more actively in commercial markets, where a broader customer base could help cushion the business against changes in procurement cycles.
The company has historically supplied grains and legumes to government institutions and United Nations organisations involved in food relief, as well as beverage manufacturers that use agricultural commodities as raw materials.
Its transport and logistics operations have also provided cross-border services to exporters.
However, expanding into commercial markets will require the company to compete on price, quality, reliability and delivery while managing its financing needs and operational costs.
One of the key areas of reform is the introduction of more formal procedures for managing transactions and relationships with stakeholders.
Twebaze said the company’s previous trading model relied heavily on personal relationships and loyalty, an approach she believes must now give way to more structured systems.
“Aponye's old way of trading ran on loyalty and personal trust rather than formal systems. Going forward, Aponye will trade with formal systems and formal stakeholder management,” she said.
The changes are intended to strengthen transparency, accountability and risk management across the business.
For agricultural traders, these systems can be particularly important because they must coordinate purchases from numerous producers, manage inventories, maintain product quality and meet delivery schedules for large buyers.
The effectiveness of Aponye’s reforms will depend on how consistently they are implemented and whether they translate into improved performance and stronger confidence among its commercial partners.
Despite its internal challenges, Aponye’s leadership says the company intends to retain its role in Uganda’s agricultural value chain.
The country’s agricultural economy continues to face challenges involving post-harvest losses, inadequate storage, market access and the costs of moving produce from farms to consumers.
Baguma argues that improving production alone will not deliver food security unless farmers can preserve their harvests and reach dependable markets.
“Our biggest challenge has been managing post-harvest losses, taking the product to market and preserving what has been produced,” he said. “You can't have food security if you don't have proper post-harvest management and food preservation.”
Aponye’s integrated operations are designed to address some of these gaps through produce collection, drying, cleaning, storage, processing and distribution.
Baguma said the company had also worked with organisations, including the Private Sector Foundation Uganda, to train farmers in modern agricultural practices and improve the quality of produce supplied to the market.
Such interventions are relevant to Uganda’s ambitions to expand agro-industrialisation and move smallholder farmers towards more commercial forms of production. However, the scale of Aponye’s current farmer outreach and the measurable impact of its training programmes were not provided.
Access to affordable finance remains another concern for the company and the wider agricultural trading sector.
Agricultural businesses often need substantial working capital to purchase produce during harvest periods, maintain storage facilities and meet transport costs before receiving payment from buyers.
Baguma said conventional lending arrangements did not adequately account for the seasonal nature of agricultural production, weather-related risks and delays in payments from institutional customers.
“The financing given to agriculture is the same financing given to traders, and that financing is too costly. That's what has been killing people who go into this business,” he said.
He pointed to potential partnerships with the National Agricultural Marketing Company (NAMCO) as an opportunity to improve financing arrangements and explore additional export markets.
The availability of suitable financing will be important as Aponye seeks to rebuild its operations without placing further pressure on its financial position.
The recovery strategy also includes efforts to improve employee morale, internal communication and organisational culture.
Twebaze said recent operational difficulties had affected staff morale, making employee welfare and clearer communication important parts of the company’s next phase.
She also emphasised the importance of leadership by example in rebuilding workplace discipline and accountability.
“The title does not matter, but what you put in is what motivates your workers. If you're telling your worker to be at work at 8am, are you yourself at work at 8am?” she said.
Twebaze believes the company’s established name remains an asset, but acknowledges that its reputation must be supported by reliable service and stronger communication with customers and partners.
She said Aponye was looking at improvements in technology, stakeholder engagement and corporate social responsibility as part of its efforts to demonstrate its continued presence in the market.
The central question facing Aponye is whether it can translate changes in leadership and internal systems into sustained commercial recovery.
Baguma said the company’s future should not be defined solely by the death of its founder, arguing that its role in the agricultural sector extends beyond the family that established it.
“We want to change the narrative that the death of Apollo Nyegamehe does not mean the death of Aponye,” he said.
The company also credits its continued operations to support from government, financiers, suppliers, employees, farmers and shareholders.
Its leadership has pointed to the government's Parish Development Model as one of the initiatives that can support grassroots enterprise and agricultural commercialisation, although the specific outcomes of Aponye’s participation or alignment with the programme were not detailed.
For now, the company’s immediate priorities are clear: stabilise operations, strengthen governance, rebuild commercial relationships and diversify its markets.
Whether those measures will restore Aponye to its former position will ultimately depend on its ability to meet financial obligations, deliver consistently to customers and demonstrate that the reforms are producing lasting results.