The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Executive Directors of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and the National Agriculture Advisory Services (NAADS) will start New Year by handing over offices and government property.
Also affected by the Parliament’s decision to repeal the various acts that established agencies, is the Cotton Development Organisation (CDO) and Dairy Development Authority (DDA).
There are a total of five agencies affected. The Coordinating office for control of Trypanosomiasis In Uganda (COCTU) has already been integrated into MAAIF.
“Effectively the above agencies ceased to exist on the 23rd December 2024. Legally, the functions and services formally offered by the agencies are transferred to the ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries (MAAI),” wrote Under Secretary Ronald Gyagenda Ssegawa, on behalf of the Permanent Secretary, December 30, 2024.
The law sent to the President by Parliament, states that on the commencement of the Act, the agencies shall be dissolved.
Gyagenda Ssegawa therefore wrote that, “the purpose of this letter is therefore to invite you on the 2nd January, 2025 at 10am in the MAAIF tent to make a formal hand over.”
The dissolution of UCDA, DDA, NAADS and CDO took effect on December 20 and 23, 2024 when President Yoweri Museveni assented to the amended Acts from parliament.
A transparent process to decide which core staff to retain will also start, an official told The Independent. Terminal benefits will be provided for those that will not be retained. (CLICK TO READ COFFEE BILL)
The implementation of the National Coffee Amendment Bill alone is estimated to cost sh3.4bilion in form of terminal benefits for about 47 staff to be laid off, but government is expected to make a saving of sh82 billion in the next financial year.
President’s stand
The government’s push to rationalize agencies, by returning them to their parent ministry as a department to save costs and enhance efficiency, has raised heated debate at various levels. Unlike the relatively straightforward dissolutions of the Dairy Development Authority (DDA), National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), and Cotton Development Organisation (CDO), processing the UCDA Bill proved contentious.
President Museveni has in the past two months vigorously defended his government’s decision to collapse these agencies, including UCDA. He has downplayed the role it has played over the years in coffee development.
In a recent 7-page response to the opposition against rationalizing UCDA, Museveni said Operation Wealth Creation-OWC which is under his brother Gen. Salim Saleh and himself have done more than what UCDA has done in improving coffee productivity and marketability.
“If UCDA and NAADS were successful, why were 68% of the homesteads still outside the money economy by 2013? OWC did much more work than NAADS and UCDA and CDO combined. In the Masaka area, Col. Nsamba, has distributed 1,000,074, coffee seedlings and caused the planting of 38,666.6 acres of coffee. OWC also gave out other planting and breeding materials: tea, fruits, pigs, cassava, etc., etc. That is how, for the first time in the history of Uganda, the number of the households in the money economy, is now 67% and those outside the money economy are 33%,” Museveni said.
He added that it is fraudulent for NAADS, UCDA, UDA among others to claim that the big boost in agricultural production is because of their efforts and that if they are not there, production will suffer.
“I am the one who promoted the massive dairy production in the cattle corridor – all the way from Bukanga (Isingiro) to Karuma in Kiryandongo district. My dairy cattle evangelism would have reached the Karamoja border if leaders were humble enough to learn new things. I have been bringing delegations from all over Uganda to learn from the success in the cattle corridor to Rwakyitura, Kisozi, Nyakaana, Mrs. Kizza of Masaka etc. It is only Speaker Anita Among who promptly copied my example of cattle rearing when she visited me at Kisozi. She has now more than 1000 cattle,” Museveni said.
The President also castigated what he called tribalism that has characterized, the debate on coffee.
There has been stiff opposition from MPs from Buganda over the rationalizing of UCDA.
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