MP Ssemujju should stop misleading Ugandans on Operation Wealth Creation
My attention has been drawn to an article written by the Member of Parliament for Kira Municipality and Opposition Chief Whip Ssemujju Nganda titled, ‘Why Saleh’s Wealth Creation is collapsing’, that was published in The Observer. This is in addition to a number of other negative articles that have been coming out in the media of recent trying to paint Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) in a negative light.
First of all, let me remind Mr Ssemujju that OWC is not a personal project of Gen Salim Saleh. As he says, its (OWC) operations are funded by money budgeted under Naads, a statutory body created by an Act of Parliament.
OWC is budgeted for under Naads through codes 015414 (provision of agricultural inputs to farmers) and 015416 (strategic interventions support). So I don’t know how Gen Saleh becomes the owner of a project, which is of a national nature. But as any undertaking, which enjoys success, it is bound to attract detractors.
Mr Ssemujju says that the OWC is failing because he chooses to look at the shortcomings that were raised in the report by the parliamentary committee on agriculture.
The issues include late delivery of seedlings that automatically get wasted; distribution of non-priority inputs; inequality; distribution of seed/seedlings that require fertilizers to poor people; dumping of seedling/seeds at district headquarters yet farmers are far away in the villages and putting seedlings/seeds at places where there is no storage capacity.
If one is to keenly look at those challenges, most of them are logistical and not technical in nature. For instance, in situations where it would be very costly to transport seeds to parishes, the district headquarters becomes a strategic place that can be accessed by residents. But in a way, Mr Ssemujju must have been disappointed for the report not to say things like OWC seedlings being sold, soldiers only give inputs to relatives, OWC soldiers ask for bribes, OWC cows fail to produce, OWC coffee has a low yields,… which is not the case.
He also says that the most disheartening thing is that agricultural production of many crops is dwindling. In 2013, before OWC began, we produced 3.1 million tonnes of maize. In 2016, with assumed better distribution of seeds, total maize production was 2.9 million tonnes.
However, he carefully avoids stating that in 2016, Uganda and most of Africa faced a record drought. Food and Agricultural Organisation that same year had warned that: ‘The current rainfall season has so far been the driest in the last 35 years.’ Therefore, in most areas, the rains started falling four months later than expected. So what did OWC have to do with that?
Though he chooses to focus only on maize, he should also know that OWC gives fish, cattle, coffee, tea, mangoes, cocoa, etc . It is unfair if he says that his people of Kira Municipality do not want OWC seeds so they should not be given out.
This is because by the social and geographical nature of his constituency, there are very low levels of farming since most people are engaged in commercial activities. It is tantamount to saying that if something is not favoured by the terrain or commercial activities of Kyazanga, then it must not be implemented in Uganda, which is very unfortunate.
I do not know what Mr Ssemujju has against soldiers taking part in such noble causes that are meant to lift fellow Ugandan’s out of poverty. President Yoweri Museveni made that decision based on the fact that other people have failed. Me Ssemujju should appreciate the fact that soldiers would never connive with farmers to put signposts showing they had benefited yet they hadn’t.
Soldiers can also never inflate the prices of seeds, cows or any inputs and unless he has any such information, let him produce it.
For God and My Country
Lt Gen Angina is the Deputy Commander,
Operation Wealth Creation.
