By Mulengera Reporters
Late last month, a police operation got underway in Bunyoro sub region’s Masindi district and the result of all this was the vandalization of at least four weigh bridges which are used to measure and determine the quantity of sugarcane a farmer has harvested and is proceeding to sell.
This is chiefly sold to sugar millers or manufacturers who are scattered across the country. Whereas the sugar giant called Kinyara Sugar is based in Masindi, Bunyoro, hundreds of farmers refuse to sell to Kinyara protesting low prices and other concerns.
Instead they feel comfortable selling to millers coming from far away such as Victoria Sugar based in Luwero or even Atiak based in Northern Uganda. Kinyara top executives have for years been angry to see cane growers operating on as much as 10,000 hectares of land stubbornly insisting on selling somewhere else and not to them.
The cane growers use privately-operated weigh bridges to determine quantity and sell to sustain millers operating far away. Barely a month ago, Kinyara started complaining and occasioning hostile acts against such defiant cane growers. Kinyara, which is as powerful as the Ugandan state itself, demanded that such growers take their weigh bridges away and situate them at Migera in Nakasongola which is over 80 miles away. This made life complicated for such cane growers and it also diminished their profit margins per ton.
Hajji Mohamood Bazimbirane, who chairs the association of cane growers in Bunyoro used the Tuesday meeting Minister David Bahati chaired at Kampala’s Imperial Royale Hotel to try and resolve wrangling between Uganda’s sugar cartel giants on one hand and out growers plus the smaller millers or new entrants on the other, to pour out his heart.
The elderly Bazimbirane, who has floored Kinyara sugar in court before and was awarded a lot of money, fearlessly narrated how Kinyara’s hostilities have crippled as opposed to blossoming cane growing in Bunyoro. He went back into history of about five years ago and explained how at some point farmers were stuck with their cane, which went for 40 months without being harvested. Atiak Sugar took advantage and came on board and started rescuing out growers who were unable to sell to Kinyara anymore.
Bazimbirane explained that Kinyara’s hostile attitude prompted farmers to come under cooperative societies whose members pooled resources and invested in their own weigh bridge in order to improve profitability and viability. Atiak supported all this progress and when it got constrained and couldn’t be relied upon, farmers allied with Victoria Sugar from Luwero and Lugazi-based SCOUL which too invested in Weigh Bridges and started buying the cane, and thereby enabling out growers stand up to Kinyara’s pride and arrogance.
Bazimbirane told the Tuesday meeting in Kampala where chief convener David Bahati was flanked by fellow state ministers Evelyn Anite for investments and Persis Namuganza (who represented Rebecca Kadaga and other elected leaders from cane-growing Busoga), that Kinyara bosses became envious and sleepless over this symbiotic relationship between them and the two sugar millers Victoria Sugar and SCOUL-and plotted mischief.
He said Kinyara was one of the chief beneficiaries of the zoning clause in the new sugar law and hoped to leverage such provisions to force all cane farmers in Bunyoro to accept poor pricing and involuntarily sell all their cane to them only. That Kinyara executives declared war on all weigh bridges which aren’t theirs in Bunyoro.
“They started frequenting Kampala to recruit allies from the Ministry [of trade]. That’s how David Kiiza [an official from Trade Ministry] recently stormed Bunyoro and started destroying our weigh bridges. He actually vandalized and took them away,” Mzee Bazimbirane narrated as the Ministers pensively listened.
Everything was dismantled and the scrap taken away by Kiiza’s team which comprised of a large group of policemen and members of the district security committee. The Masindi RDC, who coordinated the operation, was at the Tuesday meeting and explained how they were instigated by their superiors in Kampala to give David Kiiza cover for his anti-out growers’ operation.
Mzee Bazimbirane claimed that all this served the interests of Kinyara Sugar company, whose representative Counsel Alfred Stanley Odong tried to defend his employer at the Tuesday meeting but was ruthlessly shut up by Minister Evelyn Anite who was Bahati’s co-chair.
That later on 17th March, a meeting was organized at the trade ministry in Kampala to enable the affected cane growers make their case. The trade minister was in the meeting but fled when chaos ensued and protagonists engaged in a shouting match of some sort.
Bazimbirane explained that tempers flared after Mr. Rai, a director of Kinyara who powerfully also chairs the newly established sugar council (to help harmonize and balance the competing interests of sugar industry players) demanded removal of all weigh bridges on the road to his Kinyara premises. He defended the David Kiiza operation and demanded that the status quo stays. He allegedly demanded that only Kinyara-owned weigh bridges remain in Masindi.
Bazimbirane, in a long narrative, explained that the PS also later on left the meeting when things got so hot. It was decided that the Masindi area RDC organizes another meeting on the ground and resolves everything from there. During that RDC meeting, the Kinyara sugar bosses insisted staying the status quo. That during that meeting, Kinyara bosses demanded expulsion of all non-cooperative cane growers who were advised to go and operate in Nakasongola and leave the entire Masindi exclusively for Kinyara. “This was very crippling to all of us because cane growing requires to be done nearest to weigh bridge services to tame high costs which threaten profitability. Here were the Kinyara executives demanding that the nearest weigh bridge be in Migera which is 80 miles away from our gardens.”
Then subsequently came the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja letter directing halting of all roadside weigh bridge operations. At the Bahati meeting, out growers from across the country castigated the Prime Minister and claimed that her directive was parroting the talking points of sugar giants like Kinyara for Bunyoro and Kakira Sugar for Busoga.
They accused the Prime Minister of inadvertently aiding Kinyara and Kakira’s monopolistic ambitions. That the two are too fearful of competition and want the roadside weigh bridges banned in order to disadvantage new investors who are generally new to the sugar manufacturing and exportation business, which is very lucrative and they aren’t comfortable sharing the lucrative profits with anyone else. Bahati calmed them down and advised that they stop name-calling and saying uncharitable words characterizing the country’s Premier.
Leaders of the different cane growers’ associations and cooperative societies castigated the Prime Minister for relying and referencing on Minister Francis Mwebesa’s anti-weigh bridges’ earlier letter which had long been rescinded. The conclusion among the fire-spitting out growers and their leaders at the Bahati meeting was that Nabbanja had acted on wrong information since the Mwebesa letter she based on had long been rescinded.
Commissioner of Police Okosh, who oversaw the operation in Bunyoro which resulted into the four privately-owned weigh bridges being dismantled, was also present at the Bahati meeting and explained what happened. That they were called upon to give security cover to David Kiiza who they were told was heading to Bunyoro to remove the weigh bridges because they were being used to propagate and enable crime such as theft of sugarcane from the region. Okosh also gave a long explanation about the involvement of Gen Kahinda Otafiire in his capacity as Internal Affairs Minister and his boss the IGP.
He referred to several letters emanating from the trade ministry, which Persis Namuganza called upon to become better coordinated and learn to put their act together. Okosh squarely put the blame on David Kiiza who the audience castigated for giving deceptive information to police and other law enforcement agencies. Okosh had demanded that David Kiiza, who was present at the meeting and uneasily turned in his seat as out growers spat fire, explains himself but Bahati shielded him sarcastically saying he was already having more than enough problems.
David Bahati doubted how David Kiiza would explain himself regarding what exactly happened without antagonizing himself and getting into problems with some of his superiors at the trade ministry. The ill-fated David Kiiza froze and quietly walked out of the meeting room to return home as soon as the meeting ended (towards 3pm). He didn’t interact with anyone and didn’t even have guts to join colleagues for lunch that was served in one of the Imperial Royale restaurants.
As Bahati apologized and ordered the RDC to closely work with Okosh to ensure the four weigh bridges are quickly returned to the owners, Rogers Rwampanyi who owns one of the vandalized weigh bridges (and who was very outspoken during the plenary and seemed to be a well-respected stakeholder) notified the Ministers present that his company was aggrieved and considering suing government to get awarded damages to which he said he is clearly entitled having taken all these weeks not doing any work after the overzealous David Kiiza unlawfully deprived him and took away his private property. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
