BOBI WINE

GEN. MUSEVENI KILLED THE COFFEE SECTOR. NOW, SEEING IT RESURRECT, HE WANTS IT DEAD AGAIN! I was taken aback last week as I read Gen. Museveni, who has been a central figure in Uganda’s political and economic turmoil for over 60 years, boasting about supposedly reviving the coffee industry through Operation Wealth Creation. He criticized the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) for doing “nothing,” despite countless testimonies from coffee farmers across the country who attest to UCDA’s support. But this isn’t surprising: Operation Wealth Creation is led by his brother and heavily funded. True to character, Gen. Museveni will always claim credit (for himself or his family) for anything that goes well in Uganda, while apportioning blame to others for everything that has gone wrong! DISMANTLING COOPERATIVE SUPPORT SYSTEMS Regarding coffee, Gen. Museveni’s regime oversaw policies that led to the collapse of the coffee sector, including dismantling the Coffee Marketing Board and other cooperative societies that once bolstered it. When his government assumed power in 1986, it could have enhanced the Coffee Marketing Board’s efficiency. Instead, he chose privatization, leading to a cheap sale of its assets for only six billion shillings, although they were initially valued at 33 billion! After 38 years in power, his government has done nothing for the coffee sector, except selling off the Coffee Marketing Board’s assets as if Ugandans had stopped growing coffee. Assets for other entities such as Banyankole Kweterana were taken over or bought cheaply by his close relatives! It is widely known that some of the Coffee Marketing Board’s assets were given away to Museveni’s so-called “investors” as he pleased. Can he account to Ugandans for why he privatized the Coffee Marketing Board—an institution that was overseeing a sector employing many Ugandans and generating the country’s top foreign exchange earnings? Can he explain what was done with the revenue from those sales to develop the sector? DECADES OF NEGLECT: THE COFFEE SECTOR LEFT UNDERFUNDED Gen. Museveni should not mislead Ugandans into thinking his government has been committed to growing the coffee sector. For most of his tenure, the coffee industry remained severely underfunded. Since its establishment in 1991 until recently, the UCDA operated mainly on a 1% export levy. Only in 2013, after 27 years in power, did the regime make any significant investment in the sector, launching a populist initiative called Operation Wealth Creation after the 2011 elections. This program, aimed at distributing agricultural inputs such as seeds and coffee seedlings, was eventually abandoned after five years, tainted by corruption. Soldiers tasked with distributing seedlings were instructed to source from nursery operators they barely knew, with no means of identifying legitimate farmers. As a result, coffee seedlings were distributed to individuals who left them to wither on verandas, while coffee farmers remained unprepared to re-engage in production. This crucial role had once been handled effectively by cooperative societies that Museveni dismantled when he came to power. UCDA’S COFFEE ROAD MAP AND BUDGET CUTS The UCDA introduced a policy called the “Coffee Road Map,” targeting an increase in production from 4.7 million bags to 20 million bags by 2030, while aiming to triple the incomes of small-scale coffee farmers. Despite endorsing this policy in 2017, Gen. Museveni’s government has refused to fund it as projected. Since 2019, the UCDA has faced budget cuts. How can he then claim to be committed to the sector? THE “VALUE ADDITION” RHETORIC In 2021, as coffee prices began rising and UCDA raised its export levy from 1% to 2%, Museveni’s family, with its notorious appetite for wealth, moved in, as they have with other lucrative industries like vanilla, fish, gold, and other resources. 1/3