A farmer admires his ripe coffee beans. Government says adding value to coffee could see the country earn more from the sector. PHOTO / FILE
After years of back-and-forth, the government finally carried out the rationalisation of government agencies this year, with the passage of multiple legislations to merge or repeal some entities, but not without over the top drama.
The government first introduced the ambitious plan to thin public sector expenditure and administration by doing away with agencies seen to be carrying out duplicate roles as those of their mother ministries or other agencies, as well as those that had served their purpose in 2018.
The goals of the rationalisation of government agencies and expenditure (Rapex) were to relieve the government of the financial drain on its resources and the burden of wasteful administration and expenditure.
Rapex also set out to facilitate efficient and effective service delivery by clearly delineating the mandates and functions of government agencies and departments. Other goals were to avoid duplication of mandates and functions; promote coordinated administrative arrangements, policies and procedures and enforce accountability.
The government also estimated this would save the country approximately Shs1 trillion per year. Consequently, the plan, at least ac- cording to the blueprint, was to retain 80 of its 157 agencies, have the mandate of 33 reverted to line ministries, and 35 merged into 19 entities.
The road to this, however, was punctuated by varied bumps. On multiple occasions, the implementation of this policy ran into headwinds of, among others, resistance from the employees in these entities, legal complexities and worries that their end would create service delivery loopholes.
On different wavelengths
While the Executive and the Cabinet had already agreed on the Rapex, the Legislature needed to align the legal regime by enacting a number of laws. In February, the government tabled the first set of Bills to kick off the process.
A week later, however, the Parliament threw out the Bills due to errors and absence of Certificates of Financial Implications, critical documents that accompany a Bill before it’s processed. These were re-tabled after a month. In April, however, Parliament blocked the rationalisation and merging of several agencies, defying earlier calls by President Museveni to support the process.
Some of the agencies saved then included the National Forestry Authority (NFA), the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and the National Agricultural Advisory Services (Naads).
Others were the Dairy Development Authority (DDA), the Cotton Development Organisation (CDO), the Nation- al Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U), the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), the Uganda Road Fund (URF), among other Majority of the agencies had been created to give priority sectors a spin of efficiency.
This followed concerns of inefficiency in the main public service. Other agencies came on the backdrop of demands of Bretton Woods Institutions like the World Bank, and the Inter- national Monetary Fund.
Public defiance, caucusing
Before the start of the process in Parliament, President Museveni had held several meetings with Members of Parliament of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party aimed at convincing the legislators to support the mergers on the premise it would save governments Shs1 trillion.
But Parliamentarians argued that some of the agencies lined up to be rationalised served key, independent functions, and their return to the minis- tries would undermine gains made.
here were also inconsistencies in the claimed savings to be made, and questions on what precisely informed what agencies were to be done away with. After this public defiance, the Executive retreated to reorganise, sending President Museveni on overdrive to see through his plan.
He held multiple meetings with Members of Parliament of the NRM, who make up the majority in the House, with the aim of convincing them to sup- port the merger. On September 4, after a brief break, President Museveni met with the legislators, and those who had rejected some mergers agreed to support them.
The coffee fight
The Bills to effect the rejected mergers were returned to Parliament. While most of them were passed with- out much ado, with all the reasons earlier advanced for keeping them swept under the carpet, the Coffee Amendment Bill, 2024, became a bone of contention. The Bill to return the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) proved contentious.
Legislators, specifically from the Opposition, and coffee-producing areas were opposed to the move, arguing it would upend the success story of coffee. The crop ranks as one of Uganda’s highest export earners, standing at $1.144 billion in July. On October 24, an attempt to process the Coffee Bill failed following dramatic scenes that forced the Speaker, Ms Anita Among, to suspend the House.
The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP), Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, led the team opposed to the merger and put up a spirited fight, questioning procedures and processes in the processing of the Bill. This opened a public battle between the proponents of the Bill on one hand, as well as the Opposition in Parliament, the Buganda parliamentary caucus and cultural institutions on the other hand. Both parties accused the other of harbouring ulterior motives.
The process deteriorated to tribal lines after Speaker Among was accused of utterances targeting a particular tribe. The House Speaker has to date been unyielding in her claim that her comments were taken out of context, but the moment she is alleged to have uttered the inflammatory remarks proved to be deeply divisive.
With both sides unrelenting, the country watched with bated breath. As President Museveni took the fight head-on, he swiftly moved to address Ugandans and stakeholders through back-to-back missives. Three of them were issued across three days. The President showed that he was not afraid to take the gloves off. Not only did he accuse the opposing side of dishonesty, but also downplayed the role of the UCDA.
“If UCDA and Naads [National Agricultural Advisory Services] were successful, why were the 68 percent of the homesteads still outside the money economy by 2013? OWC [Operation Wealth Creation] did much more work than Naads, UCDA and CDO combined,” he wrote in one of the letters. In the last epistle, President Museveni issued, he referred to the agencies in the line of fire as “parasitic”.
Issued on October 28, Mr Museveni made clear that “in order to achieve the NRM target of social economic transformation, we insist on the mass line as op- posed to the parasitic elite line of colonialism and neo-colonialism”.
He added: “It is clear that groups like Naads, UCDA, DDA, etc are incapable of understanding the mass-line of prosperity for all. That is why they failed...”
His message generally indicated the agencies had not been effective yet the government was spending a lot more money there than in MAAIF.
“We are going to have a showdown; they are liars and criminals playing with fire,” Mr Museveni reportedly said during the November meeting, a day before the Coffee Bill was reintroduced.
The Bill was passed amidst literal blows, suspension of legislators, invasion of the Parliamentary Chambers by security personnel, an electricity black out and locking journalists in the basement
Merged
The agencies merged included the Uganda Trypanosomiasis Control Council, Agricultural Chemicals Control Board, the Uganda Meteorological Authority to the Ministry of Water and Environment, while the Warehouse Receipt System Authority was transferred to the Ministry of Trade and Cooperatives.
The others are the Export Promotions Board and the Uganda Free Zones Authority, and merged the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Center (UWEC) with the Uganda Wild Life Authority.
The National Children’s Council, National Youth Council, National Women Council and the National Council for Older Persons and Persons with Disabilities were returned to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.
The others are Unra, which was taken to the Ministry of Works; UCDA and Naads were taken to the Ministry of Agriculture. Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre was merged with Uganda Wildlife Authority, while Uganda National Meteorological Authority, and National Forestry Authority returned to the Ministry of Environment. The focus now turns to the phasing out of the merged entities, and whether indeed, there will be improved efficiency in service delivery.
