President Museveni has summoned the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus to discuss the controversial Sugar Bill, which was returned to Parliament for review after he refused to assent to it last month.
According to Daily Monitor, Mr Museveni wants to meet the MPs to convince them to pass the Bill with the amendments he proposed. The House was supposed to debate the report of the Committee on Trade and Tourism, and the minority report on the Bill at 10am today (Tuesday) but the debate has been postponed to 2pm.
The deputy chairperson of the NRM caucus, Mr Solomon Silwany (Bukooli Central), confirmed the meeting with the President will be held at the Office of the Prime Minister.
“I can confirm the caucus has been called and the Sugar Bill is on the agenda,” he said.
Sources at Parliament and State House on Monday evening intimated to this newspaper that Mr Museveni is not happy that some ruling party MPs have opposed his views, especially the introduction of zoning of sugarcane millers.
In line with Mr Museveni’s proposal, Parliament’s Trade and Tourism committee on Friday recommended that small scale sugarcane factors should not be established within 25km radius of a big manufacturer. However, this was opposed by many MPs, especially those from Bunyoro and Busoga, where key sugarcane factories are located.
Some committee members led by Ms Mary Kabanda wrote a minority report, saying that it will be disastrous to relocate established millers.
“Any attempt to relocate established millers, which are currently within 25km radius, will certainly be a disaster to the national economy and image, especially in this era of liberalisation. It will equally erode investor confidence if the already licensed investors cannot be protected by the very government that licensed their operations,” the minority report reads in part.
Sensing that the Bill would not pass on Friday, Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah postponed the debate to Tuesday, ostensibly allowing Museveni time to convince the MPs.
Sugarcane farmers under the Uganda Sugarcane Growers’ Associations last week petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, demanding that the Sugar Bill 2016 be shelved until they are consulted.
The farmers say the zoning only favours the big processors or investors in the sugar industry who grow their own sugar cane.
“Zoning through Government Imposed-Monopolies is an outdated 15th – 18th-century Mercantile thinking that believes in wealth accumulation by rent-seeking behaviours i.e., in this case farmers’ land (private property) is grabbed/colonised for production for a particular mill,” the petition reads in part.
