Government halts food distribution over lack of beans
Relief. Makindye mayor Ali Kasirye Mulyanyama (centre) hands over relief food to some of the residents of Katwe in Kampala on April 13, 2020. PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The team has not yet distributed food in Mukono, Entebbe, Wakiso and Kira Municipality due to unforeseen delays.
Government yesterday temporarily halted food distribution to the vulnerable people in Kampala Central citing lack of beans.
The news came as millions of vulnerable people hoped for free government food as hand-to-mouth residents in the five divisions of Kampala and other urban areas of the country complained about unexplained delays.
Just two weeks ago, the government, through the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), announced that it was going to distribute food to 1.5 million most vulnerable people in Kampala and Wakiso districts.
The government didn’t explain how they arrived at 1.5m people. Parliament attempted to block the exercise and demanded for a synchronised nation-wide food distribution plan but was disregarded on account of the urgency to respond to the needs of the vulnerable people, especially the urban poor.
The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) team leader, Col Felix Abucha, who is overseeing the distribution, told Daily Monitor yesterday that they had temporarily halted food distribution due to lack of beans.
Col Abucha revealed that the first supplier [Aponye company] was stopped from supplying more beans because of quality issues and that the government got a new supplier he didn’t disclose.
Col Abucha said the supply of beans is slow since the beans have to first undergo quality checks by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) before they are distributed.
“We started very well with the food distribution in Kawempe Division [in Kampala] but along the way, we got some delays in the distribution of beans by the new suppliers. Each day, he brings four tonnes of beans and when you distribute among the five divisions in Kampala, it gets done in a very short period,” Col Abucha said.
“As you can see, we have halted the distribution but once the beans arrive, we shall resume,” he added.
Col Abucha explained that the distribution of food in Kawempe, Rubaga, Kampala Central, Makindye and Nakawa divisions by separate distribution teams is under way.
The team has not yet distributed food in Mukono, Entebbe, Wakiso and Kira Municipality due to unforeseen delays.
The team had also brought two trucks of maize flour and some boxes of milk for breastfeeding mothers and children.
Col Abucha explained that the area LCI chairpersons are the ones leading the teams to different households because they know the most vulnerable in their communities.
