Revise Operation Wealth Creation programme
I have heard people claiming that passing the Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill will help fight hunger. Surely, if valley dams are drying up and water levels in the lakes are receding, can you tell Ugandans the miracles embedded in genetically modified organisms?
In any case, where is that vast international market for GMOs apart from Southern Sudan and DRC?
In her lamentation, Minister Karoro Okurut in New Vision of December 13, 2016 said: “Famine is hitting us with the vengeance of a jilted lover” while James Odongo in the same paper exclaimed “Food shortage hits Teso”. A story in Daily Monitor of October 27, 2016, narrated how the fruit factory in Soroti has gone to waste. Then there were reports of crop loss in places such as Kaberamaido District due to drought! Yet government through Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) continues to spend funds to distribute seeds and planting materials!
This is amid reports that farmers are selling off OWC cows while many of the animals die. Of course this is not surprising, since these exotic animals survive on about five Jerrycans of water per day. Yet with drought effect, there are families which survive on only one jerrycan of water per day; having spent more than 8-10 hours in search of water.
Reports elsewhere (i.e. Gulu, Bushenyi, Bulambuli) indicate that district officials reject the planting materials either because of late delivery, wrong variety or poor quality! Cases have been reported where seedlings were imposed on farmers (i.e. coffee in Kiryadongo, mangoes in Mbale and Masaka) who left them to waste! All the aforesaid have provided fertile ground for experts to dissect and diagnose the state of our economy, thus:
Uganda’s economy is becoming anaemic; Uganda’s economy is sick; fix the economy; farmers and business people choke in debts hence need for bail out etc! Of course this was and is bound to happen but unfortunately, due to inefficient, sophisticated bureaucratic processes, fraud, waste, greed and lack of accountability, the actors have no eyes to see and no ears to hear.
To-date, bold and frank estimates would reveal that the success of OWC countrywide is 40 per cent or less. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to compute how many billions of shillings government has, so far, sunk in OWC programme! What if is some of this money was used to compensate the Iteso for the livestock lost during the LRA insurgency, government would be boasting of political and food security achievements. Please, re-think and re-evaluate the OWC programme for the good of the economy. The year 2017 is not a promising one either, but who will tell the President?
John Mackay Ogwang, [email protected]
