MESHA STEEL LIMITED

Lydia Mwesigwa stands tall in steel industry her father once dominatedEmploying 150 people currently, 56 of them women, I mentioned how interesting it was, seeing the number of women in this business.work as a saleslady in Sembule Steel Mills. When it collapsed, I lost my job, but decided to spend my days in church (Mutundwe Christian Fellowship and Glorious Church) for two years, instead of sitting at home. It is from there that I would go to pick my children from school,” she said.
Utilising a piece of land she and her husband Pr Paul Mwesigwa had in Busega, Mwesigwa put up a small structure with help from her husband and sister. From there, she would buy round bars in Nakawuka and resell them mainly to Cheap Hardware in Kasubi, Viva Hardware and Hardware World, a modest business that would earn her not more than Shs 150,000 in profit monthly. That was 2013.

“From there, I sought to buy a round bar machine from China,” Mwesigwa said. “I am very good at doing due diligence; so, I found someone trustworthy to buy it for me. That was my first investment and for some time I made only round bars.”The company has since expanded beyond making just round bars, now making expanded metal lath (used for ceiling reinforcement), barbed wire, BRC (building reinforcing concrete), as well as chain-link. From just one machine, now each of the products they make has its own machine.
“In fact I don’t count the first years when someone would see me and ask, ‘Why are you here? Don’t you work?’” Mwesigwa said. “I count the last four to five years. That is when Mesha took off. Yet I still see Mesha as very young; it is other people that tell me we have grown. For me, all I know is work, work, work.”