By Mary Karugaba
Agriculture minister Frank Tumwebaze on Thursday had a hard time in Parliament explaining why the ministry has delayed giving farmers seeds for this planting season.
The MPs expressed concern that despite the promise from finance minister Matia Kasaija that money to purchase seeds would be available, the seeds have not yet reached the farmers.
“We are going on recess and the planting season has already started, but the farmers have not yet received the seeds. Can the Minister of Agriculture tell what is happening?” Nakaseke County South MP Lutamaguzi Ssemakula said.
In March, Kasaija pledged to release sh4b for the distribution of seed to farmers.
He made the commitment following a directive from Speaker Anita Among that a statement on the distribution of seeds be made.
“I am reliably informed that last season, we needed only sh4b for procurement of seeds for MPs to distribute to farmers. Let us go and look for the four billion, give it to the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) so that you take the seed to your constituencies,” Kasaija said.
He added that the suppliers of the seeds will be contacted and distribution points identified.
The Speaker gave Kasaija one week to ensure that seeds are distributed.
“We are giving you a week since it is planting season,” Among said.
Tumwebaze told the House then that even if the money is not availed soon, all that is needed is permission in writing from the accounting officers of NAADS.
“We will have the people ready on the framework and we will have the distribution per constituency as it used to be,” Tumwebaze said.
He also clarified that procurement and distribution of seeds for all districts is now done under the Parish Development Model (PDM) and not NAADS.
“The budget that was previously used by the Ministry of Agriculture and its agencies like NAADs to provide seeds was withdrawn and consolidated to support pillar one under the PDM,” Tumwebaze said.
But when he was put on task to explain the delay today, Tumwebaze said there was no money so far released by the finance ministry and declined to make any commitments.
He instead asked Speaker Among to call a meeting between the two ministries to discuss the matter.
“The Ministry of Agriculture no longer supplies seeds and has no budget for them. The policy changed and money for seeds is given through PDM [Parish Development Model]. This will stay unless the Ministry of Finance makes a commitment that they will give us a supplementary budget for that. If that is not done, I cannot make any commitment,” he said.
Tumwebaze explained that the policy changed after some seed suppliers were found to be supplying seeds to themselves.
However, Among insisted that farmers must be given seeds no matter what: “We must have food for the next season. Let’s have a meeting tomorrow at 2:00pm and we see how to find this money”.
