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Amuru, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Atiak Sugar Factory in Amuru District is seeking additional government financing to install water pipelines from the River Nile to support irrigation for sustainable sugarcane cultivation and sugar production. This request comes after the government’s injection of 108 billion shillings in a supplementary budget during the 2022/23 fiscal year to mechanize and establish irrigation infrastructure at the factory.
This followed the factory’s closure in April 2022 due to a shortage of canes, coupled with successive fire incidents that ravaged sugar plantations in Amuru and Lamwo Districts.
Mohamoud Ahmed, the Director of Planning and Investment at Atiak Sugar Factory, told stakeholders on Monday that the factory can only resume full-scale operations once it has a sustainable irrigation system in place.
He noted that the factory is already eyeing the establishment of pipelines for irrigation from another pumping station at the river Nile to the factory reservoir covering a distance of 22 km but called on government intervention.
According to Ahmed, setting up a sustainable irrigation system at the factory will boost their plans of maximizing sugarcane growing during the dry season through mechanization. For instance, he notes that since April, they have only planted 2,500 acres of sugarcane while, of the targeted 25,000 acres due to the heavy rainfalls.
Ahmed was speaking during an oversight visit of the Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Joel Ssesonyi, and his Shadow cabinet at the factory plant. Their visit was aimed at assessing the progress of the operations of the factory. Amina Hersi Moghe, the Executive Board Chair of Horyal Investment Holding Company Ltd told legislators during a tour of the sugar plantation that Unyama River where the current pumping station has been established is seasonal and won’t sustainably support irrigation.
She noted that the river Nile is the best alternative since its water is continuous and asked for the government’s support. In its efforts to mitigate climate change effects and fire incidences at the plantation, Atiak Sugar Factory is establishing irrigation infrastructure on its 4,150-hectare cane plantation transitioning from rain-fed agriculture. So far, four on-farm water reservoirs with a capacity of 3.2 million cubic liters of water in the first phase of the irrigation project are being established at 75 percent physical progress.
A total of 49 out of the 62 center pivots irrigation systems required have already been installed at the plantation waiting for continuous eater from the Nile River. Dr. Paul Ayella, Director of Irrigation Development at Atiak Sugar Factory explained that initially, they had designed an on-farm water storage that would be used during the most stressed period of the dry season.
He however notes that a feasibility study found that the Ministry of Water and Environment planned an upstream dam that would limit the upstream flow of water to the sugarcane plantation.
He notes that the design of the project which is already in its final stages will cost 43 million US Dollars (approximately 158 billion shillings). The government is expected to finance 41 percent of the project while the investor will foot 51 percent according to Dr Ayella.
But Ssesnyonyi notes that there is a need for the factory management to show the cause why the government has to add more money to its operations, 13 years later after the establishment of the plant. According to him, the government has already invested up to a tune of 553.7 billion Shillings in the venture whose benefits are not visible to the taxpayers and the local communities.
Members of the shadow cabinet also during the engagement queried sustainability of the Atiak Sugar factory project already in its 11th year of operation with no consistent production, and its impacts on the local communities in the sub-region.
So far, the government has invested a total of 553.7 billion Shillings through the Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) in Atiak Sugar factory. In its report, Horyal Investment Holding Company Ltd which invested a total of 164 billion shillings in the venture reported sales of 261,174 tons of 25 kg and 50, 938 tons of 50 kg bags of sugar produced from the factory locally at 22 billion shillings between January 2019 and March 2023.
During the same period, the investor exported 228 tons of 25 kg bags of brown sugar to South Sudan earning 484,814,797 million Shillings, and 545.50 tons of bags of 25kg bags of brown sugar to Kenya valued at 654 million Shillings. Meanwhile, during the same period, the company exported 2,884.7 tons of 50 kg of brown sugar valued at 6 billion shillings to South Sudan while 2,372.5 tons were exported to Kenya valued at 5 billion shillings.
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