A day after the Coffee Bill was passed to ensure the rationalization of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, President Museveni has hit the last nail in the agency’s coffin.
On Thursday night, the president presented ‘evidence’ to pin UCDA on being ineffective, a reason he said necessitated its rationalization.
“I thank the NRM MPs for putting an end to these parasitic agencies that were consuming a lot of money. Even if we save just shs1.5 trillion every year because of the rationalization, the money will help us do developmental work like tarmacking roads,” Museveni said during his address to the country.
On Wednesday, parliament passed into law, the National Coffee(Amendments) Bill 2024 into law, to among others approve the rationalization of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority and taking it back to the Ministry of Agriculture as a department.
This was amid chaos and protest from several members of the public over the same.
During his address on Thursday, in a bid to make case for the rationalization, President Museveni presented several witnesses including UPDF officers in charge of distributing seedlings as part of Operation Wealth Creation, farmers, Members of Parliament and businessmen who pinned UCDA on doing a poor job.
Most of these said coffee farmers were suffering at the hands of UCDA with a number of coffee bags confiscated and some of it disposed of while other bags are taken by the officials.
The ‘witnesses’ accused UCDA officials of only disposing of few bags but rather sell off the remaining bags.
In our village, UCDA is known among farmers as an entity that harasses people. They have been harassing farmers claiming their coffee is not to standard,” Mityana North MP, Kibedi Nsegumire said during the address.
The two MPs whom the president presented to pin UCDA said having worked on a program with the agency to provide coffee seedlings to farmers in their respective constituents, these were never delivered.
These said they have since been labelled liars by their voters, on account of UCDA failing to fulfill its pledge.
According to President Museveni, it was no brainer, UCDA had to go since it was not serving the people.
“I really feel embarrassed that people are wasting time arguing against rationalization of government agencies . The most ashaming part is those who were tribalizing the matter. They came out to say Museveni will steal this coffee but if it turns out that no coffee is stolen by Museveni, Ugandans must realise their shallowness and punish them politically,” Museveni said.
He said the rationalization is going save government a lot of money that was going into salaries for officials who were working in these agencies and authorities.
