By Ben Musanje
27th November 2020
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija has earmarked At least Shs11.2Bn for compensation of Bunyoro tobacco farmers who were not paid by firms that used to buy their produce.
This follows complaints from over 10,000 farmers in Bunyoro that were delivered to President Museveni accusing private firms include Uganda Tobacco Services Limited (UTS) and Continental Tobacco Uganda (CTU) among others which collapsed, for not paying them money for supplied dry coffee leaves.
Addressing journalists in Kampala today, Kasaija said that after Museveni’s order for the ministry to allocate the money to farmers and later ensure that these firms payback to government, they have managed to raise over Shs5.6 Billion for the first phase from the Supplementary fund that only awaits for the Speaker of Parliament to convene a seating to approve it.
He further says that the balance of Shs5.6 billion will be allocated in the coming financial year budget.
Ameria Kyambadde, the Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives says they have a verified list of farmers from the affected 16 districts that qualify for this payment exercise and have identified three companies with outstanding payments to their respective registered farmers include Nimatabac Tobacco Company Ltd, Continental Tobacco (U) Ltd and Tropical Leaf Tobacco Ltd.
The tobacco control and marketing regulation requires that prior to granting an export license, the sponsor must confirm full payment to farmers before getting written consent from the minister and Kyambadde reaffirms that they will no longer issue permits to any company before confirmation of payments to the contracted farmers.
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