John Odyek
27 September 2008
Kampala — The government has asked her Egyptian counterpart to clarify media reports that quoted an Egyptian minister claiming that Uganda had given her two million acres of land for wheat growing, the Minister for Lands, Daniel Omara Atubo has stated.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked the authorities in Egypt to provide us a text of the minister's speech. We are also working with our embassy in Egypt in order to get the text. We will get it directly or through our embassy in Egypt," Atubo pointed out.
Atubo was responding to media reports during a press briefing held at the Media Centre in Kampala on Friday that Uganda had allocated two million acres of land to Egypt for wheat growing. By next week we shall have a response from Egypt and we shall make a statement in Parliament, the lands minister observed.
"We have not received such a request of two million acres from Egypt to grow wheat. It is not possible. There is no such land from Uganda to allocate to Egypt. I am not aware where you can get that kind of land. Even if Egypt requested it is not possible. Uganda can't enter into such a negotiation, it is not possible," the lands minister noted.
The minister told journalists that Egypt had on the contrary expressed willingness to support peasant and small-holder Ugandan farmers to grow wheat, which they were ready to consume.
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