The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
CSOs threaten court action
But Ellady Muyambi, an environmental scientist with the nonprofit Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria; one of the civil society organisations which had been fighting the Bill, accuses the scientists at National Research Organisation (NARO) of being bankrolled by global seed companies who want to dominate the market and who sponsor their research and study abroad.
“We are definitely going to court to quash the Bill,” he told The Independent, “We should already have gone to court after Parliament passed the Bill but our lawyers advised us that we can’t until the President assents to the Bill and it becomes law.”
Muyambi says the MPs “passed a law they don’t understand and don’t know the implications of.”
The Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) say the Bill is merely a legal regulatory regime to allow in GMOs without safeguards and they pointed out gaps in the Bill that needed to be blocked to improve it.
But according to a statement by the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr. Elioda Tumwesigye, many of these were rejected.
With threats to have issues of this recently passed Bill taken to court, it looks like the five year running battle between pro GMO and opponents is not about to end.
If, as expected, the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill becomes law, it will clear the way for use of biotechnology to modify animals and plants in Uganda or import similarly treated products.
Normally, the argument has been, the purpose will be positive; to improve yields, breeds, and purpose. The biosafety element of the law means the development, transfer, application, and application of plants and animals will be done in a safe manner.
Foreign influence?
But the controversy which has followed the Bill since it was first tabled on February 05, 2013 followed it to the Committee on Science and Technology which considered it and two of the 33-member committee disagreed with the majority and authored a minority report. They complained that there was limited consultation on the Bill, it was prepared without regard to impact on the country, and focused only on agricultural biotechnology, and had external influence in its preparation.
Ssekitoleko, laboured to respond to allegations of foreign sponsorship of the Bill, especially on foreign trips. The Committee report names six countries including Kenya, South Africa, India, Brazil, Argentina and US which members of his committee visited for benchmarking studies on biotechnology.
Ssekitoleko says only the Brazil trip got money from the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) for part of the expense.
Still, UNCST was in the end denied the regulatory mandate for the biotechnology sector.
Ssekitoleko was also quizzed on why his committee visited only GMO `success stories’ and not Burkina Faso where GM cotton backfired. He said Burkina Faso never came up during the Committee discussions.
According to its framers, the Bill is intended to be a regulatory framework that facilitates the safe development and application of biotechnology in Uganda. But opponents of the Bill claim genetically modified foods are harmful to humans and that they are used by big agribusiness firms to control global seed markets and farmers around the world.
The Bill faced opposition from MP outside the committee also.
Dear Mr. Andrew Mujuni Mwenda, the CEO of The Independent Magazine Publications: your recent article “Tears and cheers over new GMO law” raises a lot of questions as far as I’m concerned. After reading it over and over again, I came to a conclusion that it was designed to paint a blemish on Uganda’s science of modern Modern Agricultural Biotechnology (MAB) with which specialists in NARO genetically-engineer/modify plants/crops for resistance against a lot of pests, diseases and challenges like drought.. Myself as a scientist and a keen reader of The Independent Magazine, I’d like to inform you that I equally follow keenly what NARO is doing to apply the science of MAB. But what disturbs me is that it looks like it is The Independent Magazine’s official policy to oppose and decampaign MAB/GM-technology. This is so, because just a few months after you published: “EXPOSED: Uganda’s secret GMO research” with the aim of dissuading Parliament not to approve the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill (2012) into law—to the contrary, MPs passed the Bill on October 4th, 2017. Now, here comes another skewed one intended to mislead the public and the world at large, that the new National Biosafety Law was illegally passed. That it was “smuggled”, because a few days earlier there had been chaos, when MPs fought amongst themselves and were violently forced out of their chambers allegedly by SFC operatives. Now, Mr. Mwenda, did Parliament close down business because 25 MPs had been thrown out by the Speaker for misbehaving? Or did it close down because MPs were forcefully ejected out? Did the Independent’s interviewees want the whole country to close down because MPs had fought among themselves and were forcefully ejected? Did the Independent Magazine which carries these allegations, close down? Did public and private businesses like transport, education, hotels, other services and NGOs sympathetic to the MPs who were ejected, close down because fighting had taken place in Parliament? If these didn’t close down, why should any good thinking person expect Parliament to stop to a halt, because 25 and other of its members [the Opposition] were out? Does the 25 plus the Opposition amount to the majority required for Parliament to operate? Why did the Independent carry such lousy allegations? Is it desperate for any remarks as long as they’re strongly opposed to the new Biosafety law or to GMOs? I found it extremely laughable for your reporter [ANDREW S. KAGGWA] who carefully chooses well-known anti-biotech activists, to include allegations by the Jakana Fruit dealer to claim their exports to Europe have dwindled because Uganda had approved the Biosafety law!! Does passing of this law usher in GM-fruits? Uganda has not developed any GM fruits, save for the bananas resistant to the ferocious banana bacterial wilt (BBW) and those with improved levels of Vitamin A micronutrients. But these are not yet ready for release. This allegation by Jakana begs the question: Has Europe explained the reason why they have rejected Jakana’s fruits? (If the allegation is true at all!!) Does Europe itself pour into the sea, the millions of tons of GM-corn, soya and cotton it imports from North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), from Latin America (Brazil, Argentina) and more from India, China e.t.c? Or do they consume and feed their livestock and poultry? If they utilize them, including production of millions of metric tons of GMO-drugs and other medical products, why should Ugandan GM-products be “rejected”? These allegations are outbursts planned to come out, in the aftermath of the passage of the National Biosafety Bill into law. It is something they’ve worked hard and long to fail. Now that it went the ‘wrong’ way, that’s the reason for this sour-grapping! Let me make particular reference to the science of modern agricultural biotechnology, which is why the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill (2012) was formulated. It mainly aims to regulate and oversee modern agricultural biotechnology in research, development, release and utilization (farming, handling, processing trading, and consumption e.t.c). Some many years ago, Mr. Godber Tumushabe, the CEO Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS) was contracted by the Government of Uganda – while he headed ACODE – as a consultant to study and provide the basis for formulating a national biotechnology and biosafety framework for Uganda. Godber studied the then regulatory environment and found it lacking the adequate policies, laws, institutions and regulations to oversee and manage the science of modern biotechnology. He among others recommended the need for the formulation of a policy and consequently enact a law and relevant regulations. Today, ACODE is one of the leading anti-biotechnology and GM-technology NGOs, that connives with The Independent Magazine’s Anti-GMO Reporter to model stories the way they are published – skewed/inclined against this science. It’s either a deeply-seated fear, a cultic hatred or all these and ideological disorientation of the activists and Kaggwa plus his news sources that are using the Independent Magazine, most likely in full knowledge of the Editor, to consistently run such negative stories against biotechnology. Ofcourse, I don’t rule out covert participation of other NGOs and related activists within their networks, who influence the planting of such stories in the Magazine. Then there’s the private sector or business interests, that see loss of market for some of their products such as chemicals, that are used for spraying against pests, which biotechnology replaces in many aspects. When scientists employ biotechnology to genetically-engineer crops, to resist pests and diseases, in some cases spraying of chemicals against such pests and diseases, would not be necessary anymore. As a result, chemical manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers lose market for their chemical products. Such interested parties would also covertly buy NGO activists and journalists, to fight against GM-crop-technology, especially via sponsorship of journalists and media messages that cause public fear, apprehension and rejection. And that is indeed the intention of such articles by ANDREW KAGGWA—who himself has expressed his anti-Biotech/GM-technology side in his Facebook Page expressions/arguments. Please Mr. Mwenda don’t allow the esteemed publication to be used to fight advancement in agricultural research and development–atleast I know you as a progressive man who believes in, and supports civilization in all sectors, including agriculture. These groups possess conservative and retrogressive ideas, that want our farmers to remain poor smallholder peasants so that as activists they have reason to fundraise in Europe to “fight and reduce poverty, hunger, disease and malnutrition.”