How MPs Voted in Controversial Coffee Authority Merger Debate
NATIONAL | Seventy-four legislators etched their names on coffee berries during the heated parliamentary debate on the National Coffee Amendment Bill, 2024.
The tetchy bill is all about dissolution of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and transfer of its functions to the Ministry of Agriculture.
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The debate in Parliament on Thursday caused coffee spillage on the floor, leading to chaotic scenes. Parliament was adjourned.
However, the Nile Post has obtained the list of the votes from the secret ballot, with names of legislators appended in doodles but which nevertheless held their ink and signature.
The government has been pushing for the controversial bill and the voting pattern showed. All those serving the Executive and party loyalists signed in for the Aye.
The Nay had legislators from the Opposition camp and the central region where Buganda Kingdom has been actively promoting coffee farming and pushed every button against the bill.
Notably, however, was the missing of former Leader of the Opposition, Mathias Mpuuga, and his close ally Abed Bwanika.
Also missing was Kira Municipality's Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganga, who reportedly left Parliament before the vote to catch a flight for a trip out.
Nyendo Mukungwe MP Mpuuga is reportedly out of the country, too, while the jury remains out on Kimanya MP Bwanika.
Yet in a heated affair in which the Speaker of Parliament was caught on the hot MIC dishing out partisan and deeply controversial tribalistic instructions, the absence of Mr Mpuuga speaks just as loud.
The recent history of highly contested debates, including the Tojikwatako Age Limit debate that led to fist fight in Parliament in 2017, has seen people with divided loyalties either run out of the country beforehand or check into hospitals.
Mr Mpuuga is loyal to Buganda but in a year in which his political lapel has been shaken hard by the controversial service award and one in which he has been valiantly defended - or saved - by the Speaker, he was destined to miss.
In the wake of the controversial debate, Buganda Kindgom Prime Minister Charles Peter Mayiga said the livelihood of Ugandans engaged in coffee farming and attendant businesses was "more important than the motives of present day politicians".
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Katikkiro Mayiga said the Kingdom of Buganda has severally advised against scrapping UCDA since it suprintends coffee production, upon which nearly 2 million Ugandan households depend.
"Apparently, scrapping UCDA is a punishment against Baganda, who contribute nearly 50% of coffee exports, since Speaker Anita Among (and those who support scrapping UCDA) see the Amendment Bill as a victory against Baganda!" he said.
Mr Mayiga said his kingdom's highly successful 'Emmwanyi Terimba Initiative' will go on unabated.
Here are the MPs who stood for the autonomy of the coffee Authority.
