President Museveni has assured Ugandans that the merger of agencies will not in any way affect government in the performance of its work.
"Because you people say that the civil servants are not active, they don't respond, okay I know them myself but when we get the army worm, who fights it? These sleepy people come up and fight the army worm. When we get the locusts like when they came, who fought the locusts? It was the army and these sleepy people, if you wake them up, they can do some work," Museveni said.
He made the remarks while addressing the parliamentary caucus of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) at state House Entebbe where they agreed on the merger and rationalization of government agencies as a fundamental strategy for optimal resource allocation.
During the meeting, the NRM Caucus resolved to support the merger of all government agencies in parliament.
According to President Museveni returning government agencies into their parent ministries is meant to streamline operations by eliminating the unnecessary.
"When the committees were here, I said to you people, with rationalisation, we need to remove what is not necessary and live the one which is absolutely necessary. If you say Uganda Coffee
Development Authority (UCDA) is so crucial, then let's remove the ministry and then we have UCDA and I could see the MPs really getting stuck," He said, adding that he does not agree to the
argument that ministries are incapable of managing the huge task ahead because their staff are permanent and pensionable saying the UPDF who are also permanent and pensionable are doing well.
"You give an order to the soldier. He will move immediately, why? Because of the standing orders governing the army. We are the ones governing the country. I am here president, and you are also there as members of parliament. Let us change the laws that govern the civil servants including the standing orders," the president stated.
He said that for coffee it is not quality control alone but about seedlings, agro-practices, irrigation, controlling crop diseases and pests and all the other levels.
The president also believes strengthening research institutions, the ones who produce the seeds such as Kawanda,Namulonge, Karengere in Kabale, serere, is also crucial.
"Recently I was in Kenya, and they are having a problem, they don't have coffee seedlings and the reason why they don't have coffee seedlings is not because of lacking a UCDA but having no research institutions," he noted.
President Museveni who shared his long experience about the history of Uganda especially the economy, informed legislators that before colonialism Uganda was a society that survived on barter trade and surviving activities which were not mainly based on money such as fishing, the crops, the livestock and the skills (emyooga).
He said after the minimum economic recovery and eliminating smuggling, black market of foreign currency the NRM focused on expansion and diversification of the economy away from the traditional money crops namely; coffee, Cotton, copper, tea and tobacco. Uganda now exports 9 million bags (60kgs) of coffee and expects to hit 12 million bags by December 2024.
"They were saying coffee, maize, milk, bananas, cassava were not cash crops but just for food. In our struggle we rejected this and that's how we pushed maize and it expanded from 500,000 tons in 1986 to now 5 million tons. Our strategy was to look at the global market and we produce whatever the global market needs," the president said, adding that a study a study by a group led by Gen Salim Saleh including now the permanent Secretary in the ministry of finance Ramathan Ggoobi recommended for the merging of government agencies which had come up and taking money but doing work which should be done by the ministries.
"So, when the economy has now grown, we said no, let's rationalise and do what is needed," the president noted.
The Operational Wealth Creation coordinator in the greater Masaka sub region Col Hassan Samba also addressed the caucus as a special guest about coffee growing in the region.
The Minister of State for Animal Industry is Lt. Col (Rtd) Bright Rwamirama informed legislators that the ministry is taking on the US model, Germany model and UK to create the Food and Agriculture Authority to deal with food, veterinary drugs, agricultural chemicals and inputs.
This is where DDA and UCDA will be absorbed.
"In rationalisation we don't intend to stop their functions but the ministry shall empower the respective divisions where they fall. We also don't intend to reduce the workforce in the regions where they have been operating," Minister Rwamirama said, adding that the services of
National Agriculture Advisory Services (NAADS) will be executed under the department of agribusiness and their technical staff will not be laid
off.
On the issue of distribution of quality coffee seedlings, the minister said the ministry seeks to empower the farmers to buy their own seedlings.
"We were requested as a ministry of agriculture to give a list of certified seed dealers who will provide the necessary quality of coffee needed and for many other enterprises. We are not going to lose any functionalities," he added.
On the other hand, the caucus also resolved to merger the services of National Information and Technology Authority - Uganda (NITA-U) into Ministry of Information Technology and National Guidance but were also given 3 years to transition after Minister for National guidance Godfrey
Kabyanga Baluku informed the President of the ongoing 3-year Uganda digital access project (UDAP) worth $200 million of which $150 million is a loan from the World Bank that aims at expanding digital connectivity to selected areas.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"We want to at least have the internet at every parish because projects like the parish development model are systems driven. This project implementation has already started and the World Bank has a very long process which might take us another two years if we try to seek to
change the implementer. And we need this project to be delivered before elections because we want every parish to be connected to the internet to also help the Electoral Commission to transmit results," Minister Kabayanga said.
The resolution received a resounding support from legislators, appreciating President Museveni's grip on the matter.
The member of parliament for Aringa South County in Yumbe district Yorke Odria Alioni said rationalisation is long overdue.
"Your Excellency, this rationalization should have ended a long time ago. You met us here last year, we agreed but later things changed, we were infiltrated. I come from West Nile and out of the 12 districts it's only 2 Zombo and part of Nebbi that access UCDA services, the rest we have
never seen," Alioni said.
The Woman MP for Omoro Catherine Lamwaka who agreed with the president about rationalisation but asked for more support to coffee farmers especially in Acholi sub-region with water for irrigation to sustain their seedlings adding that machines for irrigation are expensive.
The meeting was attended by among others the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja and other ministers.
