HOW I BECAME A BILLIONAIRE- DR EDWARD KAZAIRE

Having failed at jobs in the city, he used the  sh20,000 left as transport back to the village to start doing what made many think he was mad. A decade later, Dr. Edward Kazaire has built a more than 10bn shillings Business Empire out of herbs.

Dr Kazaire is one of the moguls that inspired the audience at the launch of the book Inspired by Bitature at Protea Hotel on Saturday 14th April 2018. The discussion was about money, wealth, business, investment, career and success.

Dr Edward Kazaire and God are inseparable. He always introduces himself with a prayer. He rose from zero to a hero. Kazaire’s life was like that of any other ordinary Ugandan youth until he attended the Life in the Spirit Seminar organized by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal while in his first year at the University, in 1999.

He recalls, “As we studied the Bible, it became clear to me that Jesus’ mission on earth was to announce good news to the poor. And good news was not for them to remain comfortable in their poverty. I realized that God wanted me to be rich for his glory.

As we concluded the seminar, we were asked to write letters to Jesus. In mine, I asked for two things: that I may be rich and that I may fully serve Him.”

Sometimes prayers are instantly answered, but other times a person first goes through tests before the testimony can finally come. The later was true for Kazaire. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 2002, he hit the streets and walked his shoes off sole; looking for jobs left and right.

“I went to Kampala Pharmaceutical Industries wishing to produce tablets but wasn’t given an opportunity. I tried my luck at National Water and Sewerage Corporation and the only available slot was for volunteering. I went to several other places and it was the same story – no jobs.”

Being the first born out of eight children, Kazaire did not have anyone to pamper him; he had to survive on his own. “I decided to turn myself into a self-styled chemistry teacher and taught in three schools. But payment was only after lots of tears at some schools. A cloud of misery surrounded me. Every day that passed, things were getting tougher and rougher. This was surely not the deal I had made with Jesus. In that frustrating moment, I prayed with a brother called Charles Birungi and I felt God asking me to go back home.

In Ugandan villages, when you are a graduate and return from the city, everyone expects you to come driving and dishing out money like you own the machine that makes it. But Kazaire’s story was different. He miserably returned to Buyanja village, in Rukungiri district, with absolutely nothing – no car, no job, no money.

He went to Ndama Catholic Church to spend some time praying. He narrates, “I needed divine intervention so I could know the next step. As I prayed and listened, I realized I was a chemist but did not know how to translate that into success. I needed to figure out how to make functional what I had learnt in school. I went to the dictionary and found three definitions of a ‘chemist’. The first one was “a person studying chemistry”. The second was “a person who teaches chemistry”. The third was “a person who prepares and sells medicine”. This third one touched me in the right place. I put in three more days of prayer about it.”

Many people get great dreams but only a few turn them into reality. Kazaire had a rich idea, but the question was how to turn it into money. That moment came when he was seated in the house and someone crossed carrying a drum, the kind used to prepare waragi.

“Suddenly, I remembered my senior one chemistry where we learnt about distillation – the process of separating mixtures. As I turned, I looked at a eucalyptus tree and remembered that I had seen people use its leaves to cure cough. I asked myself, instead of people drinking distilled waragi to forget their problems, why not distil medicine and have them cured? I began to collect eucalyptus leaves and did local distillation. I mixed the oil I extracted and concocted a syrup I called NOCOF. People tasted it and got cured.

In fact, it turned out to be more powerful than any other cough syrup on the market at the time.” Who wouldn’t want such a kind of syrup?

“So after that first formula, next on my agenda was peptic ulcers which I knew to be a chronic disease. I recalled that in Germany some people had used cabbages to treat chronic peptic ulcers. Yet here we ate them as vegetables. In Zimbabwe blackjack was eaten as a vegetable while in Uganda it was used to treat wounds. Since both plants were edible, I knew the issues of safety were covered and since they were both being used as medication, it meant their healing efficacy was also guaranteed. Hence I used the two herbs to create my second formula that started treating stubborn peptic ulcers.”

Until then, in Uganda, herbs were mainly used by Chinese herbal scientists in towns and illiterate local herbalists and witchdoctors who gave herbal medicine a bad image. But here he was, a staunch Christian and a graduate, using herbs to cure diseases. Much as it was still at a small scale, he was now sure this was the idea that would turn him into the billionaire he wanted to be, even if no one believed him. So he started spending long hours in the bush collecting all sorts of herbs, a thing that turned him into a subject of mockery, even before villagers who had never seen the light of a blackboard.

He confesses he will never forget the day he passed through a trading centre carrying a sack of herbs and heard a lady laughing uncontrollably. “Eager to know what she was laughing at, I turned only to find she was pointing at me. I was so embarrassed. She claimed I had been bewitched. In that same period, many people convinced my parents to take me to Kisizi Hospital for a mental check up.”

Much as he had succeeded in creating effective products, Kazaire had not yet started earning big from them. “I could not manage a big machine for extraction, so I came to the Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory in Wandegeya; I would give them herbs, they do the extraction and give me the concentrated extract that I would dilute and give to my clients. People who saw me on buses transporting herbs to Kampala believed the rumour that I was really mad.

Well, sometimes what the public humiliates and sees as an activity for worthless people is the genuine route to prosperity.”

I believe the Zimbabwean telecom billionaire, Strive Masiyiwa, when he says that building a big business goes beyond creating a good product and putting it onto the market. He insists that one needs to build the right team, keep benchmarking him/herself against the best in the world, keep thinking and keep innovating. This is exactly what Kazaire did as he found himself in a corner. He had started packing his products and people were now coming to buy only for his father to tell him, “My home is not a clinic; get out.”

“I was already earning about Shs 100,000 per week. So I took a step and established a small clinic near my home and called it Kazire Clinic of Phototherapy.” Word of mouth marketed him like a wildfire. Later, he secured airtime on radio stations such as Voice of Kigezi to share his healthy living message.

I remember my own dad was an ardent listener of his radio programs that whenever he went on air, we had to pause anything and everything.

By this time his products were being used in several districts like Kabale, Kisoro, Rukungiri, Ntungamo, Mbarara, Bushenyi and Kanungu. He was slowly becoming an authoritative point of reference for those who wanted to improve their health, to the extent that many people would come to consult him before taking what the medical doctors had prescribed. At one point, to boost his knowledge, Kazaire went to China and did post-graduate studies in dietorytherapy and nutrition. While there, he learnt that the Chinese use herbs a lot and it is one of the reasons they live longer.

With unbreakable faith, passion, sweat and prayer, Dr Kazaire has curved for himself a business empire that’s now estimated at over 10 billion shillings, making him one of the youngest billionaires in Ugandan shilling terms and a millionaire in US dollars.

He chose the brand name Kazire in honor of his grandfather who once built a big business out of motorcades in the 1960s. His company, Kazire Herbal Products directly employs over 100 people and indirectly over 5,000 people. He owns a gigantic factory that stands in Mbarara town. Though still under construction, it is already functional, producing 800 cartons of juice per day.

“I still need 14 billion shillings to make this plant serve the community satisfactorily. When I complete it, it will be able to produce 5,000 cartons a day,” he explains.

The factory produces an array of products. Kazire Orange Tea Drink, which boosts eye sight, empowers the digestive tract in addition to boosting appetite and the immune system, is a natural energy drink that is extracted from oranges, pineapples, carrots, green organic tea and honey.

Kazire Lemon Green Tea Drink is extracted from natural and organic lemon, green tea and honey. It is both a stimulant and an antioxidant. It reduces the severity of asthma and bronchitis, lowers blood cholesterol and stops oestrogen from stimulating growth of cancer cells in the ovaries, colon, stomach, lungs, small intestines and other parts of the body.

Kazire VIT Fruit Drink is made out of beetroot, hibiscus sabdariffa and honey. It reduces the severity of ulcers, increases blood volume and body cells, and gets rid of headaches and memory loss. Kazire Aloe Green Tea Drink from aloevera, organic green tea, lemon and ginseng clears bone, joint and back pain. It handles constipation and prevents regular fevers. It also helps people with diabetes and hypertension. The factory also produces mineral water under the brand name: Kazire Water.

These products have become so popular that in some places even when planning for a party people have to budget for soda, water and Kazire products. All these products are non-alcoholic and organic as opposed to GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

They have been certified by UNBS (Uganda National Bureau of Standards) and are now in most shops and supermarkets in Uganda. In Kampala, they are in Capital Shoppers, Quality Supermarkets, plus several shops in Kikuubo and other places around the city. The company is based in Mbarara, but has a distribution point in Kampala.

“When I finish building my factory, I will begin exporting to Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan.” As he says this, the look on his face shows a passionate dreamer who won’t stop until he reaches the top. He says he is still negotiating with Jesus to make him the youngest billionaire on the African continent.

Dr Kazaire has planted most of the raw materials he uses. He owns over 1,300 acres of land where he grows lemons, pineapples, oranges, green tea, aloevera and more than 100 other traditional herbs. Some of the lemons he uses are so rare that he gets them from Arua and Soroti and plans to begin importing them from Tanga in Tanzania. He also has an agreement with Isingiro district local government to supply one million lemon seedlings to farmers in the district freely. The catch is that he holds the right to buy the lemons from the farmers after harvesting.

If you are looking for inspiration, then Dr Kazaire’s story is a piece of meat that you should chew the way a cow chews the cud. Looking into his eyes, you see a man beaming with a sense of inner satisfaction. His testimony is evidence that there is no river wide enough to cut us from our destiny. All we need is to build a bridge. You and I can build that bridge with creative thinking.

“There’s no successful entrepreneur whose major job is not thinking,” Dr Kazaire explains. “Actually I turned an entrepreneur when I was seated, frustrated, thinking of what I should do next, that moment when the sight of a man carrying a drum triggered ideas in my mind.”

Charles Birungi, who prayed with Kazire the day he got the conviction to return to the village, now Senior Economics Advisor with UNAIDS in Kenya, remarks: “I have known Kazaire for the last 14 years. He always strives for excellence, even in little matters. I am not surprised that he has achieved phenomenal excellence in big things.” Peter Karecera, the brain behind Waterfalls Express (Jet Car Wash) and Home Improvements Ltd, says, “Rockefeller triggered an oil revolution, Edson invented a bulb, Kazaire has created health solutions.”

We are living in a conceptual age where it’s no longer physical strength, educational level or family background that matters, but how creative and innovative one is. It’s the extent to which we can create solutions to humanity’s problems that propels us to greatness. In his 30s, Dr Kazaire looks like a youth in 20s. But his small body houses a giant mind and even a bigger heart. Often people come to his factory and upon seeing him they insist their issues can be disclosed only to Mzee Kazaire, unaware it’s him!

Dr Kazire’s products are a master stroke of science and divine power. After production, he prays over them asking God to use them to heal his people. To those who think they can use evil powers to succeed, he warns, “There’s no future for those who practice witchcraft or sacrifice their children to get rich.

It always ends badly for them. What we need is divine intervention from God. Without God you will start a business and it fails for no apparent reason. You get money and spend it on a sickness. You get a job and lose it in unclear ways. But the moment we seek God, in the spiritual world we receive and that later manifests in the physical realm. Hence after prayer, we need to continue dreaming about what we have prayed for.

You can’t pray for a car and dream about a bicycle. And you won’t dream spending on Champaign before you have saved enough to buy the car.”

According to him, a functioning human being is made up of two parts – the physical and the spiritual, the inner person and the outer person. “I know that the outer me is weak; it suffers sicknesses and can get tired, lazy and bored. It can fail. But the inner me, the Spirit in me, is powerful, gifted, irresistible, courageous, persevering and will always push the outer me to do the right thing. If I want to wake up at 3am the physical me might say, ‘It is still cold; continue hugging your wife,’ but the inner me will insist that it’s time to get up and pray or read a book,” he says amidst laughter.

Dr Kazaire advises everyone who wants to grow their money never to forget to tithe. He remarks, “If you want to keep poor, cheat God. If you don’t tithe, in the spiritual realm you are a debtor and that follows you in the physical realm. That’s why some people get loans but never pay back. If your paper notes, from sh50,000 down to  sh1,000 have never gone to church to pray and it’s only your coins that pray, you are most likely going to live a life of coins.”

Paskazia Tumwesigye, a communication practitioner, testifies, “One of the unique traits about Dr Kazaire is his ability to blend business with faith. One time I listened to him speak about how he had relaxed on tithing the appropriate amount because it felt high only for his income to start crippling until he resumed giving God what is truly His and his business resurrected. From that time on, I started practically giving tithe in its fullness and now I see results.”

“Once you have a dream, start with whatever you have,” advises the accomplished billionaire. “My capital was 20,000 shillings, the transport that took me to the village. Business ideas are everywhere. You can even get one by checking in the trash bins to see what kind of products are commonly used in the area. I call this environmental scanning.”

History documents July 1979 when Peter Kazaire and Komushana Olive gave birth to a baby that was to grow into this celebrated industrialist – Dr Edward Kazaire. With all this success, he remains very humble, always praising God together with his wife Tukwasibwe Evas and three boys and one girl that God has blessed them with. His business journey is so rich that WORLD OF INSPIRATION is already eyeing publishing a book about his life. If his story cannot inspire you to turn your own ideas into money, you are not normal.