Legislators in Uganda have welcomed the sugarcane regulatory impact assessment intended to guide the formulation of laws and regulations for the subsector.
The RIA, funded by the Government of Uganda through Ministry of Finance, was developed by the EPRC in partnership with the Cabinet Secretariat, Ministry of Trade, and Ministry of Agriculture. EPRC hosted more than 40 MPs for a special meeting in November to share findings of the RIA and deliberate on the steps forward. Dr Swaibu Mbowa, a senior research fellow at EPRC, presented the report.
Hon. Richard Gafabusa, the MP for Bwamba County and a Member of the Committee on Tourism, Trade and Industry, said: “I am happy that we now have this kind of study. One of the challenges that the committee faced [is that] we found there was no regulatory impact assessment [for sugarcane] at all. There was no starting point. I am happy now that EPRC has done this study and it will be helpful for everybody and all the stakeholders, especially parliament, when we are managing this bill.”
The RIA provides guidelines to address the thorniest issues in the sugarcane subsector, including pricing formula, weighing of sugarcane, and governing council to provide oversight.
Parliament has started on the process to amend the Sugar Act 2020 after its provisions were unable to address challenges faced by those involved in the sugarcane sub-sector. An amendment bill (Sugar (amendment) bill 2023 was tabled in Parliament last year and was sent to Committee on Tourism, Trade and Industry for further scrutiny.
Buikwe South MP Dr Michael Lulume Bayiga speak during a special meeting between MPs and EPRC on the sugarcane subsector Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA).
MP Gafubasa said that when “this bill came to parliament, it was referred to the committee and we suffered with it because what government wanted and what MPs, especially from the sugarcane growing areas, wanted was very different and could not be reconciled.”
Eng Kyobe Robinson, MP for Luuka North, a sugarcane growing area, said: “Farmers want to know clearly the responsibility of the council, its funding [source] and whether some of the challenges such as cheating at weighbridges, and pricing can be solved.”
“I have seen back home in Busoga that farmers come today to the miller and find a memo that this is the price. Farmers want to know how this price is determined. We must produce a formula where there is a constant and you know the minimum price that you will get [when you take your sugarcane to the factory],” he said.
In 2022, an EPRC report found that farmers were abandoning sugarcane growing as the subsector became unsustainable. The report indicated that about 29,000 farming households engaged in cane production in 2021, down from 40,000 households that grew the crop between 2005 and 2021.
This indicates that 28 per cent of out- growers had abandoned cane growing, with the highest attrition rate (33.8%) occurring in the Busoga sub-region.
MP Kiiza Kenneth Nyendwoha, Bujenje county in Masindi district, said: “I want to appreciate the [EPRC RIA] report. The biggest challenge in the subsector now is transparency. When the process is transparent, it builds trust. The pricing has always been key together with weighing of the cane.” He said he was hopeful that the RIA will guide policymakers to find solutions to such issues.
To Hajji Iddi Isabirye, Bunya County MP in Mayuge district, and leader of Busoga Parliamentary Forum, the RIA addressed major concerns that legislators grappled with. He said: “Colleagues, most of the questions we asked during the presentation of the amendment bill have been answered in this presentation [of the RIA report].”