Kampala, (UG):- The National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED) Party President, Joseph Kabuleta has lashed out at President Museveni over the proposed coffee bill aimed at rationalizing the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) which he says is meant to keep Ugandans languishing in poverty.
“This is a deliberate move by President Museveni to prevent rural wealth accumulation, the planned UCDA merger is determined to suppress any financial gains among farmers or anyone who engages themselves in any legitimate commercial activity,” Kabuleta said while addressing journalists on Monday morning in Kampala.
“I am pleased that people are finally recognizing what we have been cautioning against—President Museveni’s measures to control rural wealth. When he took over in 1986, Uganda’s coffee exports were valued at $94 million which managed to support livelihoods by then. If there’s one thing that concerns him, it’s the idea of rural Ugandans attaining prosperity,” he continued.
The timing of the merger, according to Mr Kabuleta is very strategic, as Uganda’s coffee earnings have surged significantly, increasing from $846 million in 2022–2023 to $1.14 billion in the financial year that ended mid-2024, marking a substantial $300 million growth, this means that people who have been growing coffee and not seeing the dividends of it are now becoming richer in rural areas.
“That’s what keeps Museveni up because he has spent 40 years involved in an economic civil war trying to make Ugandans poor for he thinks poor people are easier to govern. Much of the coffee revenue bypasses farmers, as Uganda’s top 10 coffee export companies are foreign-owned including those with local branding who are licensed by government maintain a hierarchy of middlemen to maximize their profits while limiting the earnings of Ugandan farmers,” he says.
“I have labored to tell people even through my campaigns that you’re poor not because of an ineffective or incompetent government but because of a government which by design is set out to make people poor.”
According to the former journalist-cum politician, last year Uganda earned more from coffee the highest they’ve ever earned in 30 years, coffee prices nearly doubled to about $4.23 almost shs. 16,000 per kilo which means that coffee prices went back to what they once were in the 1970s when there was a real coffee boom, so many people got rich during Amin’s regime including his government and now, prices have gone back there for some reason, gone higher more than doubled and there’s even a projection that they’re going higher and that’s what keeps Museveni up at night.
“This merger will create a scenario of middlemen and that’s what he has done to every cash crop or anything making Ugandans rich and getting them out of poverty because for 40 years he has committed to keeping a peasantry of 70% of Ugandans because those are the ones who keep him in power”. Kabuleta emphasized.
He further explained that the establishment of the UCDA in 1991 was a response to the dissolution of the Coffee Marketing Board (CMB), intended to support local farmers, and therefore warned that the proposed merger with the Ministry of Agriculture would undermine this function and allow more government control over coffee revenue distribution.
Kabuleta likened it to a repeat of Museveni’s past interventions in agriculture, which he says stifled the growth of promising sectors pointing out examples of other cash crops where similar patterns have led to a decline in local wealth including the fish industry.
“In 2008, approximately 800,000 Ugandans identified as fishermen. Uganda was a top five global exporter of fresh fish to the European Union and our main competitor was China, now what China did, instead of competing with us for the EU market, they came here and took over our fish with the help of leaders who don’t want us to get rich, today, that figure has fallen to less than 100,000.”
The leader of NEED argued that Museveni’s policies have systematically prevented rural Ugandans from benefiting directly from agricultural booms, using vanilla, cotton and tea industries as examples, he noted the downfall of those markets, all of which are attributed to government regulations that created layers of middlemen, further reducing direct profit for the farmers.
“I condemn Museveni’s stance on value addition because his administration killed Uganda’s textile industry which was largely self-sustaining with 70% of local textiles produced from Ugandan cotton grown in Northern Uganda, processed in Lira Spinning mill and then taken to Nyanza Textile Industries Ltd which made all uniforms, bedsheets, clothes and other textile products we used to wear”. He ranted.
He declared Museveni’s administration as being actively opposing the economic prosperity of rural Ugandans. “His Make Them Poor policy is particularly damaging ahead of the upcoming general 2026 elections.”
Kabuleta argued that with another lucrative coffee season, rural Ugandans would have the financial independence to make electoral choices without influence from government handouts such as PDM, Emyooga, and boona bagagawale.
In his final remarks, Kabuleta emphasized that “the whole idea of Museveni in this coffee thing is to gain control to make sure farmers don’t get money and now the true leaders of this nation are declaring that this merger will NOT happen, Museveni has been found out.
“I’ve been laboring to tell people that this man works very hard to make people poor. The good news is that as soon as we get rid of him, Uganda is going to have a period of financial prosperity like you’ve not seen before, not even ever dreamt about,” he remarked.
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