James Abola
23 December 2007
Kampala — Many countries and international agencies have embraced the thinking that the private sector can make significant contributions to national economic growth and development. In Uganda the leading advocate for private sector-led development has been President Yoweri Museveni.
It is in this context that he has made two visits to Amuru District in Northern Uganda to sell to both the leaders and the population a proposal by the Madhvani Group to establish a sugar plantation and factory on 4,000 hectares or 40 square kilometres of land.
Many readers will be forgiven for not knowing where Amuru is located because it is both a new and remote district albeit with a high endowment of natural resources. Amuru was carved out of Gulu District in July 2006. It is located west of Gulu District and the southern border of the district hosts part of Murchison Falls National Park including the famous Paraa Lodge, which is being run by the Madhvani Group, while the northern part has the town of Bibia on the Uganda-Sudan border.
Many communities in Uganda would quickly welcome a proposal spearheaded by no less a person than President Museveni and from a company of the calibre of the Madhvani Group but the people of Amuru and the wider Acholi have been lukewarm to the idea. There are two main areas causing the lukewarm reaction.
The first concern is about the contribution of the sugar industry to the economic wellbeing of the community where the industry is located. Busoga and Bunyoro regions are hosts to Kakira Sugar Works and Kinyara Sugar Works, respectively, and yet strangely enough the two regions are among the most underdeveloped and impoverished in Uganda. Given the high level of illiteracy in Amuru, the only hope of employment that Madhvani would offer to the people of the district is as manual labourers earning about Shs70,000 per month.
A related matter is how the introduction of large scale sugar cane production will affect the production of other crops that provide food security and good income to small farmers. The people of Amuru and Acholi would want to understand what will be done differently by the proposed Madhvani project so that their area joins the bandwagon of development and does not get anchored in poverty.
The second concern is that both the Madhivani Group and President Museveni seem to be pushing for a quick agreement from the leaders and people of Amuru to allow the establishment of the sugar plant with apparently little or no regard to the current vulnerability of the district.
There are many facets to Amuru's vulnerability, most of which are rooted in the 21-year long insurgency between the NRA/UPDF and anti-government forces, especially the Lord's Resistance Army rebels.
The fact that there are vast uninhabited and unfarmed tracts of land in Amuru is testimony to the scale of displacement of the people of Amuru from their homes into Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps. According to the Inter Agency Standing Committee 453,223 people in Amuru District were living in IDP camps by the end of 2005 and by November 2007, only 5% had returned to their original villages; 77% of the people were still in the original camps and another 18% were in transit sites.
A second aspect of vulnerability is the level of illiteracy obtaining in Amuru and the rest of Acholi. According to a report by UN OCHA, the Acholi region has one of the lowest literacy levels in Uganda.
"Literacy rate in the region stands at 54 percent compared to the national average of 68 percent." Fourteen percent of people between six and 25 years have not been formally educated. The third aspect of vulnerability is the fact that Amuru District was only carved out of Gulu District in the middle of 2006. Saddled with a new leadership, a highly impoverished and illiterate population, the capacity of the leadership of Amuru to negotiate a suitable contract with a multinational company that also has the central government on its side is highly limited.
While the Madhvani investment opportunity is time sensitive and will not wait for ever, the government of Uganda should first ensure that some minimum social services and conditions are in place in Acholi. The barest minimum is enabling a more significant proportion of IDPs to first return to their homes. The Amuru community must also put in a place a team of experts to develop a negotiating position and advise the district leadership in any negotiation.
Mr Abola is a business and finance consultant
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