Kadaga resurrects Sugar Bill

The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, has said the Sugar Bill is one of the key items lined up to appear on the Parliament Order Paper.
The Order Paper summaries Parliament’s upcoming business for debate in the House.
Ms Kadaga said “everything is going to be sorted out” now that she has gathered enough information on the plight of sugarcane growers.
Speaking at the launch of sugarcane cottage processing and value addition at Kitayunjwa Sub-county in Kamuli District on Sunday, Ms Kadaga said: “The Sugar Bill will return to the Order Paper as early as Tuesday (today).”
President Museveni refused to assent to the Sugar Bill in April last year on grounds that ‘it does not favour concerns of the big manufacturers’.
According to Article 91 of the Constitution, the President has 30 days within which to assent to the Bill or to communicate his refusal to assent to it. If it is sent and he declines to assent to it twice, Parliament can pass it into law without the President’s approval.
Ms Kadaga’s statements came after sugarcane growers in Busoga petitioned her office against exploitation by millers, saying they want licenses to own their own factory.
Ms Kadaga further announced government’s plans to have two sugarcane incubation centres in each district within Busoga Sub-region, starting with Luuka and Kamuli.
Outgrowers, however, say the Bill does not consider the cost of establishing sugarcane plantation and transport delivery of the sugarcane to the mills, hence charging only milling, taxes and ignoring all by-products.
“We are condemned to slavery as sugarcane casual labourers since the Sugar Bill was ‘sponsored’ by millers, with farmers getting merely 30 per cent of the profits after taxes,” Mr Alan Tacca, the Luuka District sugarcane growers’ chairperson, said.
Mr Tacca, who presented the petition to Ms Kadaga, said: “Our mid-term solution is to involve Sub-county cooperatives, while the long term ambition will be to own a sugar mill.”
The Busoga Kingdom Prime Minister, Dr Joseph Muvawala, pledged to take action towards millers who refuse local growers from distilling sugarcane juice. “We shall work as a team and Basoga with get blessings from the Kyabazingaship,” Dr Muvawala said. He pledged to start up a jiggery in Buyende and foot the feasibility studies for sugarcane growing.
The Bugabula North MP, Mr Maurice Kibalya, said the Bill will enable capable people to set up a sugarcane factory and promote competition which will benefit farmers.
The Busoga Sugarcane Growers Association chairperson, Mr Isa Budhugo, said records indicate that about 26,500 registered sugarcane farmers supply sugarcane to the five millers in Busoga Sub-region. “The consumption capacity of the five factories is five million tonnes of the nine million tonnes needed, however, once farmers produce to full capacity, it will be consumed locally by the value addition chain,” Mr Budhugo said.

Factory prospect
When President Museveni met sugarcane farmers from Busoga Sub-region in December, he pledged to construct a Shs30b sugar factory following lack of market to sell their sugarcane to existing factories. Mr Museveni’s pledge came after farmers said the existing millers have no capacity to crush the sugarcane supplied.