Has NAADS become a farce?

Seemingly successful farmers have frequently turned out to be frauds or not even on the NAADS programme

By Dalton Wanyera 

Posted Sunday, September 5 2010 at 00:00

Just before the debacle of the National Resistance Movement’s August 31 primaries, there had been strident criticism of the President’s ten-day tour of Busoga, ostensibly to evaluate the performance of the much-maligned National Agricultural Advisory Services programme.

Ssalamu Musumba, FDC’s vice president (eastern) criticised the tour as a clever political move to bribe voters ahead of the 2011 elections.
“It is a shame, Museveni just wants to use the cover of NAADS to bribe voters with those brown envelops he is giving out. NAADS itself is a failed project,” she said while on a radio talk show at Bamboo FM.
But the government chief whip, Daudi Migereko and Member of Parliament for Butembe County in Jinja, has a differing view.

“This tour is very significant. It has boosted the morale of our people by the fact that the President has shown interest in what they do. It means he wants to see wealth trickle down to the people since he is giving his testimony of how he got rich through modern agriculture. It is an assurance that they too can prosper,” he said.

But the tour was not just limited to NAADS. The President told those who listened that their demand for electricity, water and roads was ambitious and irrelevant.

“I am here to talk about household incomes, how do we improve our lifestyles? I don’t understand when a barefooted man comes shouting that he wants a tarmac road. You demand for electricity yet you don’t have enough to eat, electricity will not be given to you freely,” he said at several stopovers he made.

Such statements did not stop the locals from staging ‘roadblocks’ at which they demanded to hear from Mr Museveni. This was one side of the story though: it could have been interpreted as a President talking from both sides of his mouth and the people making a political statement.

The other less dramatised story may yet bear more significance. It is the story of how model farmers to be visited by the President were selected. Emerging information now seems to suggest that they duped the President – and he went along with the lie just as he has done in other parts of the country.

This how it reportedly worked: NAADS officials in the company of ruling party functionaries would approach a well-established farmer in the region who they would convince to host the President on the claim that they had benefited from the programme. In return, the said farmer was promised fifty percent of what ‘token of appreciation’ Mr Museveni would hand out.
It is possibly with this knowledge ringing at the back of her mind that Deputy Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga clashed with Ms Susan Lubogo, a State House employee.

“How can you select all the three farmers in the same sub-county, more over the two are just 200 metres apart?” Ms Kadaga asked rhetorically in Namayingo District. “This programme is to benefit farmers across the board not for you … This betrayal cannot be accepted,” she said
Ms LubogoThe latter’s team had selected the three farmers in Bulinji Sub-county Bukoli South constituency.

In other instances, knowledgeable individuals say the farmer was coached on what to say about NAADS; how s/he has benefited and challenges faced to give the impression that they were familiar with programme.

This is why, at one of the visits to the farm of one Dasiru Mugoya, it was not shocking to hear a female MP from Iganga say: “This cow has just been brought. It is not a week old here but what can we do if things are not going the right way. We had to get something to show the President.”
There was not a single blade of grass in its feeding trough, no cow dung to show that this was its home. The structure had a wet floor where it appeared concrete had been hurriedly mixed.

“NAADS is what has brought us problems. Some people have never got items promised to them and they are frustrated. You find that money comes late or doesn’t come at all. If it does, it ends up in wrong hands,” the MP continued.

Another example of the deception came to light at the farm of Mr James Patrick Bungu. Mr Bungu currently owns 101 dairy cows having started animal husbandry with one local breed cow in 1976. He earns Shs50 million plus in a year from 230 litres of milk he sells everyday at Shs600 a unit.

“I have never received anything from NAADS; instead I supply them with my calves, [goat] kids and poultry. They are of a better breed,” Mr Bungu unwittingly let the cat out of the bag as the President nodded.

“Oh you are rich; there is wealth in Nawanyango (Mr Bungu’s village in Kiyunga District),” Mr Museveni said and promptly announced that he had donated a pick-up truck to Mr Bungu as a token of appreciation plus Shs10 million to the farmers group he heads.

Mr Bungu, like Charles Kiwanuka of Buseyi village in Busesa parish, Iganga, are rich farmers who have gotten there without NAADS. But the President was made to think the project he is so passionate about is producing results. Mr Kiwanuka also earned a pick-up truck.

In contradiction of himself, on this tour, the President rewarded big farmers with Shs10 million along with pick-ups while giving the humble and struggling peasants only Shs5 million. Yet the President had earlier promised to deal with NAADS officials who misdirect programme supplies.
“I have received reports that they (NAADS officials) give to only those who have and to their relatives. I will deal with them,” he said to some cheering. But here he was doing exactly the same thing.

Mr Zakaria Kwezila, Mr Kiwanuka, Mr Bungu, Mr Hamudan Nadhubu of Bukazito village in Nabukalu Sub-county, Bugiri District who lives in a Shs22 million house are all people of means.

But why the lies? One view is that politicians wanted to impress the President that they had worked for the success of this programme, which was supposed to be Mr Museveni’s delivery on a 2006 election promise to stamp out household poverty across the country.

The charade extended itself to the theatre of the political absurd with 102 purported defectors from the Uganda Peoples Congress opposition party being paraded before Mr Museveni in Bugiri.

The fellows bravely claimed to have been holding leadership positions in the UPC. What they may have forgotten to tell the President is that in 2006 UPC registered less than 50 votes from that area. So what were they all about?

But just possibly, the people may not have been fooled. In Bugabula South where the Minister of State for Lands, Asumani Kiyingi, is the MP residents waved placards reading: ‘No electricity, no fourth term’ and ‘NAADS is for the rich.’

“NAADS and the way it was handled have exposed a very nasty streak in our society,” says Dr Frank Nabwiso, a former MP and member of the Forum for Democratic Change.

But the director NAADS Secretariat, Dr Silim Nahdy is very optimistic. He says: “The second phase has been allocated more funds, though details are not yet confirmed by both the government and development partners. It is proposed to be over Shs160 billion per annum.”

For a programme that was supposed to penetrate the remotest parts of the country, its impact on rural household communities (in terms of enhancing food security and improving incomes) remains uncertain as Mr Museveni will have probably realised from the feedback he received from the people.
It seems that the strategy of employing model farmers to spur change has been undermined by corruption.

As Dr Nahdy observed, the challenges in farmer empowerment, service provision and procurement must be addressed in Phase II if only to avoid a repeat of the pretense which unfolded on the Busoga presidential jaunt and in other places before it.