The President of the National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED), Joseph Kiiza Kabuleta has lashed out at President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for mis move to rationalize the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA).
… this is a deliberate move by President Museveni to prevent rural wealth accumulation, the planned UCDA merger is determined to suppress any financial gains among farmers or anyone who engages themselves in any legitimate commercial activity,’’said Kabuleta.
Mr. Kabuleta made the remarks today during NEED’s weekly press conference at the party’s offices in Kampala.
According to Kabuleta, when President Museveni took over power in 1986,Uganda’s coffee exports were valued at $94 million which managed to support livelihoods by then, a value that has since grown to $1.14 billion and that the President doesn’t want to see this kind of prosperity.
“Much of the coffee revenue bypasses farmers, as Uganda’s top 10 coffee export companies are foreign-owned including those with local branding who are licensed by government maintain a hierarchy of middlemen to maximize their profits while limiting the earnings of Ugandan farmers. I have labored to tell people even through my campaigns that you’re poor not because of an ineffective or incompetent government but because of a government which by design is set out to make people poor,” he further said.
According to Kabuleta, last year Uganda earned more from coffee the highest they’ve ever earned in 30 years, coffee prices nearly doubled to about $4.23 almost shs. 16,000 per kilo which means that coffee prices went to what they once were in the 1970s when there was a real coffee boom, so many people got rich during Amin’s regime including his government and now, prices have gone back there for some reason, gone higher more than doubled and there’s even a projection that they’re going higher and that’s what keeps Museveni up at night.
“This merger will create a scenario of middlemen and that’s what he has done to every cash crop or anything making Ugandans rich and getting them out of poverty because for 40 years he has committed to keeping a peasantry of 70% of Ugandans because those are the ones who keep him in power”. Kabuleta added.
“I condemn Museveni’s stance on value addition because his administration killed Uganda’s textile industry which was largely self-sustaining with 70% of local textiles produced from Ugandan cotton grown in Northern Uganda, processed in Lira Spinning mill and then taken to Nyanza Textile Industries Ltd which made all uniforms, bedsheets, clothes and other textile products we used to wear”. He ranted.
In conclusion, he declared Museveni’s administration as being actively opposing the economic prosperity of rural Ugandans. His Make Them Poor policy is particularly damaging ahead of the upcoming general 2026 elections. He argued that with another lucrative coffee season, rural Ugandans would have the financial independence to make electoral choices without influence from government handouts such as PDM, Emyooga, and boona bagagawale.
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