By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
Parliament is spending sleepless nights over a proposal by retired army officer Lt Moses Magufuri Mugisha Byabonera seeking to establish agriculture and cooperative bank in Uganda.
This is after Guild Presidents from across-country universities expressed willingness to back him in the fight to see the bank established.
“As students’ leaders across Uganda, regardless of our political ideologies, religious affiliations, gender, ethnicity and social economic orientation have resolved to warmly welcome and embrace the proposal by Rt. Lt. Magufuri Moses Mugisha Byabonera to push for an Agriculture and Cooperative Bank in Uganda,” read students leaders petition in parts
According to the students, the establishment of the bank will ease access to agricultural credit services to majority nationals who are farmers than referring them to commercial banks.
Lt Magufuri has been at the helm of fighting for the establishment of the agriculture and cooperative bank since he assumed office as the Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) procurement and seeds monitoring officer.
In his letter to the director Operation Wealth Creation Gen. Salim Saleh dated September 8, Lt Magufuri noted that agriculture is the backbone of Uganda employing close to 68 percent of the population therefore, should be financially priotised.
He suggests that instead of government scattering funds in uncoordinated projects like Naads, emyooga, micro-finance, youth livelihood fund among otherst, he funds should be put in one pool (farmers’ bank) for easy accessibility and acquiring loans at low interest rates.
Lt Mugufuri, who also doubles as the national chief coordinator for transformation cadre association, further called for fast-track the formation of agriculture and cooperative banks in the country.
“I have observed that there is a missing link that affects people engaged in agriculture due to the absence of robust agriculture financing,” the letter reads in parts.
It adds: “Since 1990, the government has instituted a number of reforms meant to enhance production, competitiveness and household income as advised by World Bank and IMF and these were seen to bring Uganda into a middle income [status] by 2020.We have not gotten there yet.”
According to magufuri the effective implimentation of PDM lies in establishment of agriculture and cooperative bank, otherwise money allocated will follow other Government intervation predecessors
This proposal has been awaken by the students’ leaders in their petition to President Museveni and the parliament who argue that the absence of the bank limits their opportunities in the agriculture sector.
“As students who hail from farming families, as well as people who have suffered from continuous denial to access friendly finance for our agricultural needs – yet we are soon joining the struggle for jobs, this remains a major concern to us,” read a petition by the students leaders.
It added quoting Zambian Vice President Simon Mwansa; “In our view, we wish to advise government to accord the issue of agriculture finance a weight equivalent to that of national security because once this sector is neglected, according to Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe, the vice president of Zambia 1967-1970, once said,” if we don’t handle our independence very well, colonizers will come back in form of investors.” and we don’t want to see this happen in Uganda’s agricultural sector.”
They say that failure to establish a farmers’ bank will make it difficult and costly to fix the challenge of the already displaced farmers.
The students who have declared support to Lt. Magufuri’s proposal also implored Ugandans to support the idea stating that it is the only strategy that will offer the long-awaited outcomes to Ugandan agriculturists.
They said in their petition that the agriculture and Cooperative Bank will cater for all elements necessary to realize increased household income as indicated in the NRM Manifesto 2021/2026.
“It is our belief that the success implementation of PDM is solely dependent on the creation of this bank, in addition to facilitating all other arms in the income generation model,” they added
The proposal is giving too much stress to members of the 11th parliament as many Ugandans and different farmers unions in the country are raising up in large numbers demanding for the same.
Students too have launched a campaign dubbed “Vote or No Vote” where they are sending messages to their respective legislators requesting them to second the proposal lest they risk being voted out of perliament in 2026.
“Some of us are spending sleepless nights figuring out how to convince electorates – majority farmers or forge lies on addressing sectoral challenges. I hope that this proposal is adopted and the bank instituted to focus on farmers credit needs, take into consideration risks like crop failures and price volatilities of agro products,” said an anonymous MP.
