Dr. Emmanuel Iyamulemye, the Managing Director at UCDA addressing coffee exporters
The Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) is in the process of contracting a company to develop a Mobile App that will be used to register coffee farmers across the country.
The revelation was made by Dr. Emmanuel Iyamulemye, the Managing Director at UCDA during a breakfast meeting held at Serena Hotel on Wednesday to discuss developments to facilitate the coffee export business.
Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Customs officials were key facilitators at the meeting.
Iyamulemye welcomed President Yoweri Museveni’s decision to return the National Coffee Bill, 2018 to Parliament for further review, saying the Bill was brought up for “good reasons.”
“More innovations are going to come once the Coffee Bill becomes law,” Iyamulemye said, adding that the Coffee law will be good for traceability purposes.
Traceability is the capability to trace something. In some cases, it is interpreted as the ability to verify the history, location, or application of an item by means of documented recorded identification.
“We are actually in the process of contracting somebody to develop the App for farmer registration,” Iyamulemye said, adding that UCDA doesn’t have the capacity to develop the App.
“The registration will not be done on paper but on the well developed Mobile Application System,” he said.
He added that the system will capture details of the farmer including indicating whether he’s under a cooperative society or not, the number of acres, the number of trees and their age, if coffee is grown organically or not among other key details.
He noted that although the Bill was referred back to Parliament for review, it (Parliament) had earlier allowed farmer registration and it’s not one of the contentious issues the President he is raising.
On how farmers will be registered, the Iyamulemye said UCDA will identify what he termed as Parish Coffee Development Advisors who will do the actual registration of farmers using the Mobile App.
He said besides traceability, registration of farmers is key for planning purposes.
For example, he said, stumping of old trees will be easier once farmers are registered.
Uganda’s coffee exports for the calendar year (January 2020 to December 2020) totaled to 5,492,525 bags worth US515.94 million ( approximately Shs1.902Trn), compared to 4,519,563 bags worth US$436.54 million (Shs1.610Trn) recorded the previous year.
This represents 22% and 18% increase in quantity and value respectively.
Facilitating Exports
Abel Kagumire, the Commissioner Customs at URA told coffee exporters the tax body is looking at facilitating trade in order to get Uganda out of economic dependence.
He urged coffee exporters to embrace Electronic Single Window System, saying it resolves the time and cost challenges and eliminates non-tariff barriers.
“Your products (container) will be cleared once in Uganda by the Customs Clearing Agent. When your container reaches Kenya, no one will interfere with you because they are already aware you were cleared,” Kagumire said.
He further revealed that going forward, all Ugandan cargo will go through the recently opened Naivasha port in Kenya which is intended to release pressure on the Mombasa port.
He noted that the Naivasha port reduces transit time by 5hrs via Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to Mombasa and will increase truck turn-around time on deliveries.
