OWC wants Parliament to legalize their status

Feb 20, 2017

One of the directors says OWC's legal status is loose and so cannot ably deal with the interference with their work.

Directors at Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) have called on Parliament to make them a legal entity that can make decisions that will restore sanity in their work.

Sarah Kataike Ndoboli, director in charge of policy at OWC, said their legal status is loose and therefore cannot ably deal with the interference with their work.

She made the appeal to the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, who visited their stall at the just-concluded Harvest Money Expo, organized by Vision Group at Namboole Stadium.

"We are just an initiative by the president. Our role now is to guide the distribution of the inputs, but when someone misuses them, we also have to first report to the LC1. But we should have powers like the IGG [Inspectorate of Government], so we can take them to court especially if we are going to deal with counterfeits," said Kataike.

She added that for information, farmers are not willing to share with them saying they are not officials from the ministry of agriculture and have no budget instead these depend on the National Agriculture Advisory Services (NAADS).

"In the case of NAADs, how do you supervise someone who is facilitating you? So this continues to weaken their work as Operation Wealth Creation is meant to be," she said.

Kataike's issue was acknowledged by Kadaga who confirmed that OWC is operating without a legal framework because nobody introduced the matter to parliament for discussion.

The Speaker said that parliament through the relevant committees will discuss the matter once it is brought to the floor of parliament by the line minister.

"When they [OWC] were established, noone brought anything to parliament, we just heard, so we are going to wait for the minister of agriculture to bring the issue to the floor so we can discuss it and find ways of making it a legal entity," said Kadaga.

Operation Wealth Creation was set up in 2013 by President Yoweri Museveni with an aim of eradicating poverty in the country with the assistance of the army. It is headed by Gen. Salim Saleh.

It is currently involved in the distribution of agro inputs like improved seeds to farmers in different parts of the country.

 

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