Speaker Among has been forced to postpone the consideration of the National Coffee Amendment Bill, 2024 after the plenary sitting turned chaotic, following the presentation of the Majority report from the Agriculture Committee, recommending the abolishing of Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and provide for a transitional period of 3years.
In an unusual move, the Bill attracted 3 reports including; the majority report and two minority reports from MPs in the Opposition who opposed the merger, saying it would be detrimental to Uganda’s coffee sector.
Linda Auma (Lira DWR), who is also the Chairperson, Parliament’s Agriculture Committee started off by painting a glossy picture of the achievements done by UCDA in developing Uganda’s coffee sector arguing that the Authority plays a pivotal role in overseeing quality to ensure compliance with ethical conducts and international safety standards, quality management, which includes regulating planting material, production, harvest, postharvest practices and processing to meet international standards.
“The coffee sector, should be independently regulated to meet the demands of the export market. The civil service model operations and service delivery cannot efficiently deliver and undertake this mandate. UCDA has increased the production volume of coffee from 3.5million 60Kg bags in 2014/15 to 8.06million 60Kgs bags currently, with a medium term target of 20million bags by 2029/30. Merging the mandate and abolishing UCDA at this time risks derailing this very critical target of the coffee road map,” said Auma.
Auma further argued that coffee quality control requires swiftness and high level of efficiency which is best provided under the Agency model, but swiftly water down her earlier praises on UCDA arguing that the task ahead is enormous and requires empowering and supporting the successor agency to sustain, consolidate and build on the UCDA achievements.
She defended the Committee’s position arguing that mainstreaming UCDA into the Ministry immediately risks compromising quality and research efforts and may lead to information asymmetry, it would also jeopardize critical functions, leading to adverse on Uganda’s coffee exports and competitiveness.
“The Committee is of the view that the mandate of UCDA, being a growing concern is better served by the Agency model in the interim as the Ministry builds capacity to seamlessly take over the mandate of UCDA. The Committee recommends that UCDA be rationalized subject to a three years transition period, to enable the Ministry of Agriculture build the capacity to execute the mandate that is under UCDA,” remarked Auma.
“Countries like Kenya and Ethiopia which attempted immediate rationalization from the Agency model, to the Ministries suffered serious setbacks resulting into reduced coffee production for exports. These countries have since reverted to the agency model. Given the above achievement and commitment of UCDA, the Committee recommends that UCDA be rationalized, subject to a three year transitional period, to enable the Ministry build capacity to execute the mandate that is under UCDA,” said Auma.
In the first Minority report presented by Hoima City’s Asinansi Nyakato and coauthored with; Stalla Apolot (Ngora DWR), Charles Matovu (Busiro South), Betty Aol (Gulu City) and Florence Kabugho (Kasese DWR), the team highlighted the discrepancies in the severance package proposed by Government arguing that although the current UCDA structure indicates that there are currently 159 contract staff, with majority of these staff still having more than three years, remaining on their contracts, the Ministry of Public Service only captures 75 staff, begging a question on what will happen to the uncaptured staff.
Nyakato also argued that mainstreaming UCDA will automatically nullify the recognition of UCDA of Uganda as an international centre of robust coffee excellence and it will pose a risk to the implementation of protocols with adverse effects on the coffee sector, which will be a huge loss to the sector that employs 12.5 million households.
“Certification and accreditation requires a very rigorous process of building systems, personnel and continuous inspections by the accrediting bodies. And because the markets have become more selective with the requirement of traceability, UCDA is a recognized body that can implement this commitment. In all successful coffee nations, coffee is regulated under a specialized agency. The coffee agency model has proved successful in coffee giants like Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia,” said Nyakato.
While reading the third report, Abed Bwanika (Kimaanya-Kabonero) opposed the abolishing of UCDA, he however proposed that if Parliament was to go ahead with the rationalization of UCDA, there will be the need to provide for a transitional period of five years to allow the Ministry of Agriculture to establish the systems and structures to enable Uganda obtain accreditation to export coffee, that is currently being held by UCDA.
He also argued that mainstreaming UCDA into the Ministry, risks compromising quality control and regulations, which will negatively affect coffee trade and markets and this will adversely affect the coffee exports from Uganda and our global competitiveness.
“It takes 5-10years, for any system to be accredited internationally and accreditation involves pre-accreditation, desk review, onsite survey, and accreditation decisions, that requires 5-10years. The moment we tamper with UCDA, we are going to lose this accreditation and it isn’t true that the Ministry will get the accreditation the next year, we need 5-10years,” said Bwanika.
“We don’t want to try what the neighbours in Kenya and Ethiopia tried and failed they rationalized their Boards and they were terribly affected. Currently, it is UCDA that is best positioned in terms of professional knowledge, human resource, systems and accreditations to handle the mandate of quality assurance and all regulations necessary for coffee value chain and international trade,” Bwanika remarked.
He added, “The Ministry of Agriculture in its current form lacks capabilities, systems and structure to handle coffee quality regulations and the stringent trade requirements for the markets in the coffee trade. Ministry doesn’t have that capacity now.”
Bwanika also proposed that in these five years of transition, Government should provide adequate funding to promote coffee growing in Northern Uganda, this area has been waiting for coffee as a perennial cash crop for a long time
However, Ssemujju Nganda (Kira Municipality) mocked the double standards and cowardice exhibited by MPs in the 11th Parliament, whom he accused of changing their positions on a whim, wondering how the same MPs that opposed the merger of UCDA had turned around to rescind their position.
“I now sympathize with people who will be reading the Hansard of Parliament, they are going to ask simple questions, which Parliament is this one? That you take a decision today and tomorrow, you come and fall on each other. We now congregate here to rescind on our own decision the way we did with the budget. Whether we don’t need to address what is growing like a habit that this Parliament can take a decision, they arm twist it, we come running,” said Ssemujju.
The Committee further notes that in order to sustain the European market that constitutes 65% of Uganda coffee sales, UCDA developed a traceability system intended to support the sector to comply with the requirement of the European Union Deforestation and Corporate sustainability and due diligence directives, whose deadline is on 3rd January 2025.
During the transitional period, the Ministry of Agriculture updates Parliament bi-annually on the progress towards attainment of the requisite capacity to undertake the mandate of UCDA.
