Museveni to speak about sugar in Busoga region

SUGAR BILL

President Yoweri Museveni is expected to address the people of Busoga in Jinja district about the contentious issue of sugarcane growing.

The President's talk comes after he rejected to sign the Sugar Bill 2016 into law over failure to allow zoning.

Zoning means a sugar factory will be kilometres away from the other. There are several sugar factories in Busoga such as Kakira Sugar Limited (KSL), Sugar and Allied Industries Limited in Kaliro, Kamuli Sugar, Mayuge Sugar as well as GM sugar in Njeru and Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (SCOUL) at Lugazi in neighbouring Buikwe district.

In the Bill, the Government had proposed a zone of 25km between mills, with no more than one mill in that zone and out-growers in that area only supplying sugarcane to the mill.

The Sugar Bill seeks to provide for the development, regulation and promotion of the sugar industry.

However, the MPs removed the zoning bit before passing the Bill.

But Museveni said he was not happy with the MPs for passing the Bill without considering the interests of the big sugar manufacturers.

According to the chairman of Busoga sugarcane out-growers' association Issa Budhugo, out-growers are spread all over the sub-region, but with the majority in Jinja, Mayuge, Luuka, Iganga, Kamuli, Kaliro and Bugiri district.

The price of sugarcane ranges between sh95,000 and sh110,000 per tone at the different factories, Budhugo said. Earlier, a tone had risen up to sh175,000.

Mid this year, outgrowers under their association had secured permission to sell their canes to a factory in western Kenya but many pulled out after encountering a number of hurdles, including some of them being arrested by Kenyan authorities.