Why Saudi Arabia rejected minister Kasaija’s goats

Finance minister Matia Kasaija

What you need to know:

  • The government and France signed a Shs6.2 billion grant for feasibility studies for a number of small hydro-power generation sites in Okulacere and Agbinika in West Nile region and Maziba in Kabale District.

KAMPALA. Finance minister Matia Kasaija has asked the ministry of Agriculture to identify nucleus farmers across the country to act as role models to other farmers so that the country produces livestock and crops based on set common standards.
While addressing journalists in his office in Kampala on Friday, Mr Kasaija said he suffered a huge loss last year when he exported to Saudi Arabia substandard goats, which were rejected because they failed to meet the quality of goats Saudi Arabia imports.
“I rear goats. They wanted 2,500 goats in Saudi Arabia, but I managed to get 400 which I sent but they were rejected because they wanted six-months-old goats but I had sent ‘off layers’,” he said.

“In Saudi Arabia, when you supply goats they should be of the same set standard of colour, same size and height, not ours with different types of horns, different skin colour,” the minister said.
Mr Kasaija was responding to a question from the Sunday Monitor on how he expects ordinary Ugandans to benefit from the export market yet as a government officer with technical knowledge he had failed the test of international trade.
The question was prompted by Mr Kasaija’s appeal to French ambassador Stephanie Rivoal to identify successful farmers in beef, dairy and poultry in France to come and help government set up such farms in the country following the excess electricity the country is enjoying now because of investments that have been financed by the French government.

The government and France signed a Shs6.2 billion grant for feasibility studies for a number of small hydro-power generation sites in Okulacere and Agbinika in West Nile region and Maziba in Kabale District.
Ms Rivoal said in France, they have zoned the country into areas that produce specific kinds of food and animals which has helped the country to maintain its soils and produce based on common standards.
“If an area is good for pork production, we allow it to specialise in pork production because we also know the danger of an area specialising in one crop because eventually the soils lose fertility when the crop sucks out all the minerals from the soil,” she said.