Parliament shoots down Kibalya’s bid to protect small-scale sugar mills

Parliament has rejected pleas by Bugabula South MP Maurice Kibalya to exempt small-scale sugar mills from regulation under the Sugar (Amendment) Bill, 2023, which was passed yesterday.

Submitting on April 15, 2025, Kibalya had argued that small players in the industry should be spared the full weight of the new law.

According to the new bill passed on Tuesday (April 15), cane prices shall be derived from a new formula: PC = PS × R × D, where PC is the price of sugarcane per ton, PS is the average price of sugar per ton, R is the redement (tons of sugar made per every 100 tons of sugarcane), fixed at 8.5% but negotiable under certain circumstances. D, on the other hand, is the share of the proceeds, set at a minimum of 55 percent.

Under the Sugar Act 2020, the sugarcane price was determined using the C × R × D formula, where C was the weight (in tons) of sugarcane, R was redement, and D was the percentage share to be negotiated by the concerned parties as decided by the Board, with a minimum set at 50 percent. This formula led to conflicts between farmers and millers.

Under the new law, any miller who pays a grower or out-grower a sugarcane price that violates its provisions may have their licence revoked by the Minister.

Additionally, anyone who wishes to modify a mill is now required to seek a recommendation from the Council and obtain approval from the Minister—something Kibalya argued placed an undue burden on startups.

“We have used a blanket statement to say mills. Now mills we have not defined their capacity. In the area where we grow sugarcane, we have cottage industries and jaggeries and the word ‘modification’ may affect a person who has a jaggery just improving it or these cottage industries that manufacture a few things. Is this person also supposed to seek permission?” he posed.

However, Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa reminded him that the law is meant to be blind and must apply equally to all.

“When we make laws, we make laws for the whole sector. You don’t license for small or big… The problem that you have been having is a sector which was not regulated. Now you want to have a sector that has some and doesn’t regulate others. Let everybody come clean. Then under the council and regulations they can go into the process of the small ones,” Tayebwa responded.

“They can, for example, say for small ones [it] can be handled by the sub-committee and then the big ones can be handled by the council. But you can’t say we are regulating people who are producing waragi, you say they should have distilleries but we have these ones who use drums and all that, they shouldn’t. What would be the purpose of the law?” he wondered.

He was joined by State Minister for Trade David Bahati, who cited an age-old English analogy: “You can’t have your cake and eat it. You are not going to organise the sector and also remain with some parts which are disorganised. The reason we want to regulate the sector is bringing everyone on board and [to] have a properly regulated and organised sector.”