MPs grill ministry boss over bulls taken from govt ranch
Agriculture Permanent Secretary, Mr Pius Wakabi Kasajja (R) and Minister of Agriculture, Mr Vincent Ssempijja
Legislators yesterday questioned the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Pius Wakabi Kasajja, to explain how Minister Vincent Ssempijja took away 15 bulls from a government ranch.
Mr Wakabi was appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chaired by Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi (Budadiri West MP). Mr Wakabi said Mr Ssempijja made a request for the animals to facilitate a political activity in his Kalungu County constituency in October 2019.
“As an accounting officer, I have made a statement that has been delivered to Parliament. The entity offered the bulls as to the request the minister had made. I don’t have the report here,” Mr Wakabi said.
On the same matter, Mr Ronald Ssegawa Gyagenda, the undersecretary, revealed that Mr Ssempijja first put in a request for financial assistance but the technical team instead decided to support him in form of bulls.
“For this particular issue, the minister wrote to the Agency requesting for financial support. For this, we looked at the cows and all the awarding of the cows that were supposed to be disposed of. We followed the procurement procedures,” Mr Gyagenda said.
The MPs, who were receiving responses from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries (MAAIF) in regard to queries raised in the Auditor General’s report for the 2018/2019 Financial Year, said they had got information from previous plenary sittings that Mr Ssempijja took the bulls from Lusenke Stock Farm in Kayunga District to slaughter for his voters in Kalungu.
The matter was brought to the attention of Parliament by Kawempe North MP, Mr Latif Ssebagala, about a month ago quoting media reports that Mr Ssempijja had picked the bulls on October 23, 2019 from the ranch that is under the management of the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank (NAGRC&DB).
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, directed Mr Ssempijja, who was away in Karamoja Sub-region to within one week present a statement to the House on how he got the bulls free of charge.
The MPs insisted the explanation by the PS was not convincing. “There is a procedure of disposing of public assets. The minister should have used inside trading which is a crime. Therefore, accounting officer, if you never followed the process of disposing of these cows, you have a case and on this, we have an interest,” Mr Mafabi said.
The committee directed Mr Wakabi to present a report on how the ministry disposed of the bulls with documentary evidence of the bidding process, the evaluation of bids report and how the minister was awarded.
The PS was also grilled on how the ministry allocated land to private investors who are reportedly working on cattle breeding projects in some of the ranches around the country. The MPs said the Auditor General had queried why the land was given out without valuation reports.
Mr Wakabi who confessed that there is no up-to-date register of how much agricultural land the ministry has control over, said: “We instituted a land committee to carry out an inventory and in two years, we will be able to finish the work.”
Mr Wakabi also said the giveaway of the land in some ranches to investors for breeding purpose was a presidential directive.
But he was challenged by Bukoto Central MP Florence Namayanja and Kashari North MP Wilberforce Yaguma who said giving out agricultural land is subject to approval of Parliament.
