Ugandans want govt to merge UCDA , says minister 

The Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Dr Chris Baryomunsi has asked members of parliament to stop politicking and tribalising the coffee bill saying that the majority of the population want the government to rationalize Uganda Coffee Development Authority.

This follows a vote in parliament last week, intended to shove Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), a regulatory body into the Ministry of Agriculture in a “rationalisation,” exercise to reduce government expenditure on state agencies.

The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Anita Among was allegedly heard on the microphone urging the National Resistance Movements diehards in the house to “make sure those Baganda don’t have the numbers.”

Speaking to the media at the Uganda Media Centre on October 29, Mr Baryomunsi said the Coffee Bill is not to destroy the coffee sector but to put UCDA under the Ministry of Agriculture  the regulator will get a new space but will continue to do its tasks.

“We do not believe in sectarianism and therefore we should debate this issue from a nationalistic perspective, but also understand that we are rationalizing UCDA but not coffee. We are not rationalizing coffee as a plant. We are just rationalizing UCDA, which is a government institution created by the NRM government,” Dr Baryomunsi said.

Adding on, “I saw four MPs from western Uganda, we are now fighting the bill saying  Western Uganda has also rejected the bill, there were four MPs who were just  making noise and I  challenged Mps to bring those arguments on the microphone without shouting.”

The minister explains that the technical people will be absorbed in the ministry saying that those who do not fit in the ministry will be absorbed in the wider government.

“We are not telling Ugandans to abandon the growing coffee. We are just carrying out an administrative rearrangement of government departments,” he said.

In 2016/17 financial year, Dr Baryomunsi said the government spent shs755bn on salaries for the staff or civil servants who are in the ministries whereas in the agencies we are paying shs955bn saying the move to rationalize government departments and Agencies started to way back in 2018 and the goal was to save government expenditure in term of salaries and allowances.

 “We are spending more in terms of salary to the employees in agencies compared to those who are in the ministries and districts local governments,” he said.

Adding on “The agencies in most cases the officers were earning much better than the civil servants who are in the ministries. When you look at allowances for instance the item on allowances in that year 2016-17 we were paying Shs329bn  to the ministries whereas agencies were spending shs360bn on allowances.”

Regarding concerns about the Italian company Vinic potentially taking over the coffee sector, Dr Baryomunsi stated that the company proposed infrastructure for adding value to coffee, but the proposal was put on hold.

"The Pineti proposal to build infrastructure for coffee value addition had nothing to do with the UCDA rationalization. Our commitment to building national capacity to process coffee locally remains unchanged," he said.