Cabinet has reconsidered and resolved that the National Coffee (Amendment) Bill 2024 be supported and passed into law without the three-year transitional period.
The decision followed a series of meetings held by both the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus and NRM caucus in Kisozi.
In February 2021, cabinet chaired by President Yoweri Museveni resolved to rationalise 38 agencies. The arguments forwarded for the rationalisation was to stop duplication and wasteful expenditure and realign service delivery.
Earlier this year, Frank Tumwebaze, the Minister of Agriculture, tabled the National Coffee (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to mainstream and rationalise the functions of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) into the Ministry of Agriculture. The committee on Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries took up the matter.
A report by the Committee on Agriculture indicated UCDA plays a pivotal role in overseeing coffee quality to ensure compliance with export contracts and international food safety standards. Quality management spans from seed to cup, which includes regulating planting materials, production, harvest, post-harvest practices, and processing to meet international standards.
The Committee noted that there is no duplication of UCDA’s mandate with MAAIF or any other government agency recommended that UCDA be rationalised subject to a three-year transition period to enable MAAIF to build capacity to execute the mandate that is under UCDA.
While defending the rationalisation, Museveni said he is the vision bearer of UCDA; he however, argued that by 2013, UCDA and NAADS had no impact, and 68% of the homesteads were still outside the money economy.
“It’s fraudulent for NAADS and UCDA to claim that the big boost in agricultural production is because of their efforts. The high yielding clonal coffee seeds were developed by the late Dr. Sebunya Kibirige, not the irrelevant and opportunistic UCDA and NAADS,” he said.
He claimed that it is irrational to have agency or authority for coffee, malakwang, piggery, etc. The government came up with rationalisation to stop irrationality.
He said it is criminal for agencies (UCDA) to interfere with our mandate as the elected leaders to propose adjustments to achieve the goals of social-economic transformation. The parasitic UCDA, NAADS, etc. are incapable of understanding the mass line of prosperity for all.
However, those opposed to the disbanding of UCDA claim it has performed far well and its push into mainstream docile mother ministry would disadvantage the achievement of the coffee industry. Others claim there is a hidden agenda by those behind the move to hand over coffee to private individuals that are central to power and have all along developed the appetite for coffee as it gains on the world market.
