KAMPALA, Uganda: MP Mathias Nsamba Mpuuga, the Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the Uganda’s National Assembly, has added an interesting spin to the controversial coffee pact, by dismissing Italian divisive Enrica Pinetti as merely a fence for Uganda’s leader, Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the Investigator writes.
Responding to a remark the President made recently that he is the one who backed Pinetti to process and export Ugandan coffee, Mpuuga retorted that there was nothing new the President stated that ‘we’ happened not to know. “We always knew he (the President) was the Pinetti in a black skin,” the lawmaker asserts in a media interview. Mpuuga says the President can go ahead and insist on pushing through the coffee pact with Pinetti, just that he should know better that he has no coffee himself, to satisfy the kind of volumes he seeks to grant to the shadowy Italian investor.
Expressed differently, what Mpuuga seeks to point out is that the Ugandan coffee farmers must not be herded into deals which they happen to have no prior knowledge at all, let alone the same which they have not been consulted upon. The Ugandan leader, during his year’s independence celebrations speech, dared anyone averse to Pinetti`s coffee pact into a fight.
Pinetti’s credibility is under the spotlight after failing to account for over UGX300Bn which he received through the auspices of the President under the guise of building a specialized hospital at Lubowa. The facility was erected only up to the foundation level. But what an insult in view of such colossal sums of public funds which was budgeted, processed and issued out for that critical item.
Reverting to the President, he said; “Am the one who backed her. Now let anyone come out and beat me.” He was taking a pointed swipe at the Monitor newspaper which he loves to chide now and then, for writing what he abhors. Yet without the same necessarily being untrue all the times. The Namuwongo-premised newspaper lifted the lid on the controversial coffee pact.
Indeed, the Investigator gathers that Museveni first met Pinetti over this coffee deal on July 14th 2014. This was at his country home of Rwakitura in Kiruhuura District. “I have spent a long time trying to look for somebody to add value to our coffee. Uganda has been a donor by exporting raw coffee,” Museveni told the Italian delegation led by Uganda Vinci Coffee Company Limited Board Chairperson, Enrica Pinetti. On Ugandan side, Pinetti was accompanied to President Museveni, by then Director Uganda Coffee Development Authority, Mr. Henry Ngabirano.
This pact had remained a guardedly top secret between the President and Pinetti. From 2014, it had escalated to the level of being secretly negotiated, signed and sealed by Museveni’s Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija and his newcomer PS, Ramathan Ggoobi, when the Monitor helped to lit a torch through it. And then everyone else woke up and started to raise an alarm about what had all along gone on and also about what was going on. The necessary public din would end up attracting the ear and eyes of the national assembly which swung into action and tore the pact to shreds.
And that position, for the pact to have purported to grant to Pinetti, the monopoly of buying, processing and exporting the world’s second most valuable resource there is, after oil. Such kind of monopoly would be too much for country Uganda which claims to espouse the free trade economy. The regime led on by the President, refused to kowtow to the National Assembly’s resolution. The youthful Finance PS, Ramathan Ggoobi, told off the lawmakers by claiming how Pinetti`s coffee deal was the best Uganda has ever sealed!
The stance taken by the regime would end up prompting some concerned Ugandans to resort to the courts of law, to give a stamp of authority to the Parliamentary resolution. Both the Attorney General, Kiwanuka Kiryowa and Pinetti have since asked the courts to dismiss the petitions, claiming how the coffee pact isn’t a monopoly and is also a private enterprise which Parliament has no business tampering with. The government adds that it’s solicitor general okayed the deal, leaving Parliament with no iota of authority to tamper with the same.
Author Profile
- Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]
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