By Mulengera Reporters
A top official in the Ministry of Agriculture (MAAIF) has branded Chief Administrators Officers (CAOs) sabotuers saying they are the reason government efforts to eliminate the Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD), a major killer of livestock, have largely remained unsuccessful.
Dr. Ben Ssenkeera, who serves as Veterinary Inspector in MAAIF, made this revelation last week at Serena Conference Center where he was addressing dairy farmers who attended the Makerere EPRC-organized National Forum of Agriculture & Food Security. His paper was titled “Status of animal health and current interventions to address related challenges.”
He enumerated some of the most rampant animal diseases to include FMD, CBPP, Lunny Skin disease, Brucellosis, Goat & Sheep pox, PPR and Brovine TV which affects the lungs. He reported that FMD had turned out the most challenging largely because every effort MAAIF undertakes to contain it is frustrated by Local Governments in districts where outbreaks are detected. He explained Uganda is a high risk country to these animal diseases because it’s located in a region that is highly susceptible to such outbreaks.
Ssenkeera explained that once detected, the first thing they do is to impose a quarantine prohibiting any cattle sales or movements from that district or Sub County to another. The quarantining normally lasts 6 months only to be lifted once in the assessment of the MAAIF teams, the problem has been overcome. The relevant MAAIF Commissioner, working with district veterinary officers, will send out a circular directing authorities to halt operations in all cattle markets. It also means the district can’t issue any cattle movement permits without which police must impound the trucks carrying cattle.
He explained the Animal Diseases Control Act, under which the quarantine is imposed, obliges LG leaders to implement the cattle movement restrictions upon receipt of the circular. They must enforce it until MAAIF lifts it in consultation with the vet officers in the districts. Dairy farmers at the meeting had complained FMD was on the rise in Ugandan cattle-keeping districts because MAAIF had failed to stamp out fake arcaricides which ticks successfully resist.
But Ssenkeera explained the other major cause was sabotage by local governments which always foil the quarantine because to them closing cattle markets means losing revenue because they cash in on every transaction. He said in districts like Sembabule, Isingiro, Nakaseke and Hoima the CAOs sometimes connive with LC5 Chairpersons to “illegally lift the quarantine,” something Tororo CAO Dunstan Balaba (who Chairs Association of all CAOs) furiously told Mulengera News is untrue.
In a phone interview, Balaba urged Ssenkeera to advise his bosses at MAAIF to own up rather than trying to look for people to blame. “That is the work of the Veterinary Officer and MAAIF. There is no way the CAO can do such a thing,” said Balaba who sounded shocked at the MAAIF officer’s allegations.
But Ssenkeera insists that because their recruitment, supervision and remuneration was decentralized, the District Vet Officers are these days more loyal to the CAOs than MAAIF. He said in extreme cases, CAOs unethically manipulate Vet officers even to conceal information about the FMD outbreak in their respective districts just to prevent MAAIF from imposing a quarantine. He said this is common in Isingiro. He also faulted LGs for refusing to enact bylaws to control ticks and animal diseases yet this duty is imposed on them under the Animals Diseases Control Act.
Ssenkeera says sometimes CAOs even run radio announcements calling on the community to defy the quarantine imposed by MAAIF. He says whereas the CAO is looking at revenue, the LC5 chairman, councilors and other elected leaders are looking at the next elections as imposing a quarantine has never been politically popular. But Balaba vehemently protested this claim saying: “I think that official is confusing something; the only announcements the CAO can put on radio are those announcing the end of the quarantine and that can only be after MAAIF writes to us lifting the quarantine.”
Ssenkeera added that in some districts, LG leaders connive with “unscrupulous traders” to move infected cattle at night even in total defiance of the quarantine in force. He added that sometimes such cattle from Isingiro is first hidden in Gomba before finally being sneaked to city abattoir for slaughter using fake cattle movement permits.
He said besides sabotage by LG officials, lack of funding to carry out adequate surveillance and absence of properly functioning diagnostic laboratories are the major cause of the persistent FMD. Ssenkeera also incited the audience to demand that NDA gets out of regulating animal drugs and concentrate on human medicines. Ssenkeera said inadequate coordination between MAAIF, NDA and Dairy Development Authority (DDA) is equally hampering efforts to obliterate animal diseases.
Saying all wasn’t yet lost, Ssenkeera said the MAAIF leadership was now looking forward to the billions that have been availed to boost research at Makerere in the FY2019/2020 under the Presidential Initiative to support sciences in order to find a lasting solution to especially arcaricides-resistant ticks. MAAIF is also counting on the recently signed MoU with Cuban vet doctors to gradually overcome FMD and other animal diseases, Ssenkeera disclosed. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
