KAMPALA- Members of Parliament on the three parliamentary committees of national economy, finance and agriculture have this afternoon set off to Entebbe State House to seek advice from President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on whether Uganda coffee development authority can be merged in its mother ministry of Agriculture in the ongoing merger of departments and gov’t agencies.
In April, Parliament received 23 more Bills that were introduced by the Executive as part of government efforts to repeal and amend provisions in the law to enforce the Rationalization of Government Agencies and Public Expenditure (RAPEX).
However, during debate on the Bill, MPs resisted the merger of UCDA into the ministry of Agriculture noting that coffee needs an independent body to manage it but not the ministry of agriculture.
The NRM caucus also agreed with parliament and they resisted the removal of Uganda’s coffee development authority, dairy development authority and cotton development authority, parliament passed the three Bills into Law independently which were sent to President Museveni for signing.
President Museveni rejected to sign the 3Bills into Law, noting that there were mistakes done by parliament while scrutinizing those Bills to take back all those three authorities to the main ministry of agriculture and president Museveni therefore directed parliament to re-scrutinize the three Rapex Bills.
Speaking to the media the vice Chairperson of the National Economy Committee also Buvuma Island MP Robert Migadde Ndugwa says the committee has scrutinized the Bills again and have agreed that Uganda coffee development authority shouldn’t be tempered with.
Migadde says coffee is one of the cash crops that bring a lot of revenue to the country and that they can’t allow the same mistake which was done by Kenya to rationalize its coffee authority which will reduce on revenue in Uganda.
He says if the UCDA is merged the quality of coffee might decline as he explains.
Cue in……………Migadde on meeting
Kimanya-Kabanero County MP Dr. Abed Bwanika says they will not accept merging the UCDA into ministry of Agric as he explains.
Cue in……………Abed on meeting
