Nathan Nandala Mafabi
27 March 2008
opinion
Kampala — In Masabaland, we cherish two important things: Coffee and circumcision. The coffee used to be sold through primary societies to Bugisu Cooperative Union (BCU) and in turn the primary societies would avail interest-free credit, keep savings and coffee stocks of farmers. The warehousing system that was later started by the Ministry of Trade existed in Bugisu as early as 1954 when BCU started.
Coffee was a major export earner for Uganda up to 2001 and therefore contributed highly to GDP. In return, the farmers earned a lot of money and improved their welfare. Masabaland was the major producer of Arabic Coffee which contributed more than 70% of the coffee exports because it was the premium type.
However, at present our farmers are poor due to mismanagement of their coffee by businessmen. The Bamasaba built a big empire "the Bugisu Cooperative Union" which acquired a big asset base that has made it survive to date despite the mismanagement.
Following the request of farmers, the Inspector General of Government directed the Commissioner of Cooperative Development to investigate the alleged financial impropriety of the Board Members and Management of BCU. Although the report has never been released, the investigations revealed the board and management had run down BCU.
Another inquiry was instituted by the Ministry of Trade and was due to be released at a Special General Meeting of BCU but the Chairman of the Board, Mr Wakyaya and his Vice Mr Wamulugwa, went to court for an injunction stopping the meeting.
There are nine board members supervising a skeleton of four staff: The General Manager; Chief Accountant; Administrative Manager and the Cashier. In actual sense, they are managers without staff to manage.
Now BCU is going down to ruins. In 2005/06, BCU borrowed $440,000 (about Shs748m) for crop finance and $362,000 (about Shs615m) for export finance from Jobbings Ltd. However, in this particular period, BCU did not trade in any coffee but this debt was passed over to farmers.
In the same year, BCU claimed exchange loss of Shs244m when there were no coffee sales or exports. In 2004/05, BCU claimed that coffee worth Shs1b was stolen but there was neither a police report nor any person charged with the theft.
Meanwhile, the BCU assets were mortgaged to Mr Luigi without approval of the BCU members. The plant and machinery was initially leased for seven years but this later changed to 20 years.
Mt. Elgon Hotel was sold to Mr Luigi without any bid valuation and advertisement allegedly to "pay debts" but these continue to accumulate. The claims by Mr Luigi that he lent money to BCU should be verified by cheques and bank transfers. Failure of which means BCU did not receive any money. We call upon government to verify such claims before thinking of bailing out BCU.
In BCU and circumcision ritual, there is no religion, politics or colour. We request government not to politicise BCU as this is the only engine for development in Masabaland unless government wants to keep us under-developed!
It seems most local politicians supporting the board and management have benefited from the mismanagement of BCU. Otherwise, why should someone support such people? It is also surprising some that non-Bamasaba are interested in the affairs of BCU when their own unions are collapsing or have collapsed.
Our call to the Bamasaba is to resist all moves that are intended to destroy our union and the people. We must save BCU for our farmers in order to fight poverty. Our SACCOS in the region already exist as the primary societies and these should be protected by all well intentioned Bamasaba.
The writer is a farmer and member, Busamaga Growers Cooperative Society and Chairman of Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee
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