As the war on rice trade rages on, legislators have asked President Yoweri Museveni to take action against state minister for trade, Harriet Ntabaazi, over her directive on rice imports.

In a report presented and adopted by Parliament, the MPs on the trade committee criticised Ntabaazi for issuing a directive to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) commissioner, stopping the clearing of VAT-exempt rice imports from the border.

The committee chairperson, Mwine Mpaka, informed the House, chaired by Speaker Anita Among, that the minister’s directive not only resulted in massive losses to traders, but also disrupted trade since rice traders suspended their operations, resulting in an increase in rice prices in Uganda.

“The committee finds that the minister’s directive to URA was ultra vires to her functions since she has no mandate over tax matters. Her failure to hear from traders before imposing arbitrary orders exposes the Government to unnecessary litigation,” the committee said.

It was established that Ntabaazi on numerous occasions exceeded her powers and issued orders that distorted trade order in the rice trade.

“Hon. Ntabaazi exceeded her authority in some of the matters involving trade order in the rice sub-sector. The minister, without authority and without involving the rice traders, instituted Rice Agribusiness Development Foundation (RADFO) as the apex body in the rice sub-sector, causing disruptions and disorder,” Mpaka told the House.

He said Ntabaazi’s actions were tantamount to abuse of office, corruption, facilitating corrupt transactions with agents, bribery,

influence peddling and conflict of interest, which are all crimes provided for under the Anti-Corruption Act of 2009.

The MPs also recommended that the Inspectorate of Government carries out further investigations with the aim of prosecuting Ntabaazi.

On May 5, 2022, rice traders from the rice sub-sector, specifically Kampala Rice Traders Limited, petitioned

Parliament to make interventions in relation to the interruptions resulting from the minister’s directive.

The petitioners said because of the directive, trucks carrying rice from Tanzania were stuck at Mutukula border post, uncleared. The traders said the minister’s directive had caused considerable losses arising from cargo carriage charges and other business-related costs; with time total loss of business was the result as trading premises lacked the anticipated rice stock and caused unlevel trading ground since some traders were paying taxes, whereas others were not.

In May 2021, President Museveni, on realising that the rice deficit in the country had increased, allowed 11rice millers (mainly members of the Rice Council of Uganda), to import a total of 114,000 metric tonnes of brown rice.

The trade minister said that to ensure the stability of the sector and mitigate the domestic impact on the rice sector, an administrative measure was instituted, resulting in the issuance of the import permit for rice.

“The committee recommends that civil action be instituted against RADFO, with the aim of obtaining compensation amounting to sh17.8b, which was illegally, unlawfully, illegitimately, dishonestly, fraudulently and unpatriotically collected from the traders,” Mpaka said.

Ntabaazi, in her response, said most of the allegations labelled against her by the committee were different from what she was asked to respond to when she was invited before the committee and was, therefore, not given an opportunity to respond to them.

“The issues raised in the report are totally different from what I was asked to respond to when I appeared before the committee...,” she said before the Speaker asked her to explain what she told the committee.

She said most of the decisions she made were intended to create sanity among the rice traders.

“There was a lot of fighting among the traders and as a minister, I had to intervene. Some of the fights were spilling over into Tanzania and we had to move very fast. The decision to create RADFO was not mine alone. It was a collective decision involving among others the traders,” she said.

The MPs, during the debate, insisted that the minister explain where she got the mandate and ordered further probing of RADFO and the rice trade.