President Yoweri Museveni has vowed that he cannot ban rice imports from Tanzania and affirmed commitment to regional trade and cooperation.
His remarks come amid rising concerns from Ugandan rice growers that the rice from Tanzania is cheaper than theirs thus hindering their businesses and local production.
Museveni made the remarks while commissioning the 600MW Karuma hydropower project in Kiryandongo district.
“I cannot ban rice from Tanzania. If I do so I will be making four mistakes; I will cripple Tanzanian rice growers and if they don’t have enough buyers, then they will leave the business for other things and collapse,” he said.
He added, “I will be punishing Ugandans by making them buy expensive rice to please inefficient Ugandan growers and this is a sin to God. I will also be crippling Ugandan rice growers from competing with the same other growers in looking for the markets. They must be able to compete.”
Museveni added that if he bans the rice from Tanzania, the Tanzanians too will ban something from Uganda hence forgetting the protocol of the East African Community.
“This leadership is not as simple as you people think. To be a leader you must be able to see far. Let us talk to all our people. We open up the markets so that we sell what we produce, what we produce best and they buy them,” Museveni advised.
He called upon Ugandans to foster regional integration and boost local production competitively without isolation, citing that the internal market is not enough.
Museveni added that the economy of Uganda will have four sectors; commercial agriculture with irrigation, manufacturing sector with factories, the service sector and then ICT. Noting, “In order to modernize these sectors, you must have low transport cost for the business to exist. The railway is the cheapest means. We are going to build a new Standard Gauge Railway so as to have low transport cost.”
He also urged the Ugandans in the agriculture sector to borrow money from Uganda Development Bank, PDM and Emyooga SACCOs since they have low interest rates.
“The money lenders are your enemies and I am going to do something to them. I am going to crush the money lenders. They are criminals,” he said.
