The First Deputy Prime Minister, General Moses Ali (pictured) has refuted claims that Government has been giving out rotten beans, noting that all the food Government is distributing has been cleared by Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS).
He was responding to Kasese Woman MP, Winfred Kiiza (FDC) who said government is distributing rotten beans. Kiiza first appreciated government for the gesture to distribute food to the vulnerable but said there is need to ensure the food being supplied is edible, after reports emerged indicating that the food being distributed is rotten and asked government to look into the matter.
“This practice of giving people rotten beans, you give 3Kgs and one and half Kgs is full of stones and dust, you can leave it,” Kiiza said.
However, Ali wondered if Kiiza is behind feeding Ugandans with her own rotten beans.
“For Government to give out food simultaneously to the whole country isn’t going to be possible because to acquire this food is going to be very difficult. But for a Member of Parliament to stand here and say beans are rotten, that is a lie. The beans you (Winnie Kiiza) are talking about must be your own beans,” said General Ali.
In a dramatic episode of uncoordinated movements of troops, General Ali made the shocking claim during yesterday’s plenary sitting, noting that all food that government is distributing is cleared by UNBS.
However, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, reminded the Prime Minister that two members of his cabinet, Betty Amongin (Minister of Kampala Affairs) and Musa Ecweru (State Minister for Disaster Preparedness) had confessed that the earlier food supplied by Aponye Limited was of poor quality, full of foreign particles.
“But your minister was on television admitting that the beans had a problem,” Kadaga said.
Moses Ali denied knowledge of his fellow cabinet making such allegations on food supplied by Government.
When reports emerged that beans supplied by Aponye Limited were full of stones and dust, the NRM camp denied allegations describing it as a smear campaign sponsored by the opposition.
However, it wasn’t long before Government admitted presence of foreign particles and that the supplier had been ordered to clean up their beans before being supplied to Ugandans.
