‘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.

Museveni justified this by claiming he was promoting “value addition” in coffee, though he had been in power for nearly four decades without such an initiative. Imagine if genuine value addition efforts had begun in 1987, instead of driving the Coffee Marketing Board to artificially inflate prices from Ush 24 to Ush 29, which caused many societies to default on payments to farmers. If his government had supported the Coffee Marketing Board’s efforts to process coffee back then, Uganda could have rivaled NESCAFE.

Gen. Museveni seems to overlook that if he hadn’t sold off the coffee processing factory in Bugolobi, Uganda would probably be earning more from its coffee than Germany or France.

ENTER ENRICA PINETTI

Instead of partnering with established players like Olam, Ugacof, Kyagalanyi, Ibero, and Kawacom to shift away from exporting raw green beans, Museveni brought in an unqualified ‘investor,’ Enrica Pinetti, to produce instant coffee under Vinci Coffee without any experience in the industry.

When he finally considered building a coffee factory, rather than empowering the Bugisu Cooperative Union and other experienced entities or establishing factories in major coffee-producing regions, he handed over more than 100 billion shillings in taxpayer money to a family friend to build a facility in Ntungamo.

While Gen. Museveni accuses those of us advocating for a well-regulated coffee sector of being “anti-rationalization crusaders,” we will continue to argue that Uganda deserves a government that recognizes coffee as a sector with the potential to uplift millions of Ugandans—not just those in Buganda, but across all coffee-growing regions. The coffee industry needs an independent regulator focused on promoting both quality and quantity.

THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE’S CREDIBILITY

Gen. Museveni’s Ministry of Agriculture lacks credibility, weighed down by a legacy of failures with products like fish, tea, maize, sugarcane, and vanilla—all once significant sources of income for Ugandans. Placing coffee under this ministry would be tantamount to repeating the disastrous privatization of marketing boards.

UGANDA’S REAL VISION: RATIONALIZATION WITHOUT EXCESS

General Museveni must understand that Ugandans do not oppose a lean government. In fact, Ugandans seek an efficient government with a smaller Parliament, fewer cabinet ministers, and fewer presidential advisors and commissioners. This vision was outlined in the NUP’s 2021 manifesto.

We aim to end the bloated, ineffective public service that Gen. Museveni has fostered, with new agencies duplicating the roles of existing institutions. For instance, while the Inspectorate of Government, the Ministry of Health, the Uganda Revenue Authority, the Uganda Investment Authority, and the Ministry of Lands already exist, Museveni has created parallel units within State House, granting them enormous budgets to “monitor” or duplicate their work. Although the IGG is constitutionally mandated to fight corruption, the State House Anti-Corruption Unit has been given the most power to carry out this function.

It is Museveni who in addition to RDCs and Deputy RDCs, recently added the position of Assistant RDCs- all imposing a significant burden on the tax payer. How can Museveni then claim to be an advocate of “rationalization”? Instead of branding those who support UCDA as “criminals,” he should explain why he presides over such an oversized government with dismal service delivery.

THE NEED TO PRESERVE UCDA AS A STRATEGIC INSTITUTION Ugandans are therefore not against rationalization; they simply want to safeguard UCDA, a strategic institution responsible for regulating a critical sector. Many coffee-growing nations maintain similar institutions. If rationalizing everything were Museveni’s real aim, he would advocate for dismantling the Petroleum Authority, the National Oil Company, the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), and other institutions. But he has not, because he views them as “strategic.” The same reasoning should apply to the UCDA, which most Ugandans consider vital to the coffee industry.

A CALL FOR GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY AND STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION

Of course, the root issue here is impunity. Unsurprisingly, Museveni’s ministers and spokespersons have tried to intimidate citizens into silence-  declaring that  regardless of public opinion, the government will have the “final word.” But a responsible government would listen to and consult key players in the coffee value chain rather than imposing decisions unilaterally.

Instead of enforcing Museveni’s outdated ideas, the government should have sought input from stakeholders like those managing the Buganda Kingdom’s “Emwanyi Terimba” initiative, the Bugisu Cooperative Union, and others. Nothing speaks of dictatorship more than watching a regime push a bill opposed by coffee exporters, traders, processors, and the few remaining farmer cooperatives!

Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi) is the National Unity Platform (NUP) president

Read more on the coffee debate and rationalization Here, There and Over There.

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