Mr Mohamed Ahmed of Horyal Investment Ltd (left) leads Naads officials led by the director, Dr Samuel Mugasi (centre), on an inspection of sugarcane plantations in Atiak, Amuru District, in August 2019. Net Photo
A longstanding dispute between sugarcane outgrowers and the management of Atiak Sugar Factory in Amuru District has delayed the commencement of production.
Installation of the machines at the factory was completed at the end of June. More than 100kms of roads around the sugar plantation and a bridge on Unyama River have also been built to ease movement of produce and workers.
However, this newspaper has established that sugar production could not start at the beginning of the month due to failure by government to compensate two cooperatives for their sugarcane cuttings supplied to the factory.
Naads in 2017 cut down more than 160 acres of sugarcane plantations belonging to Atiak Outgrowers and Gem-pachilo cooperative societies. The government used the sugarcane cuttings to expand the factory plantation. However, to date, the residents have not been paid.
Mr Dan Kidega, the board chairperson for Atiak Sugar Works, said they are struggling to resolve the compensation issue.
“We are continuing to engage Naads to make sure that this payment is effected soon and that such delays don’t reoccur in future. When one of the parties in the business is not comfortable, we as a board also become uncomfortable,” he said last week.
Dr Kidega revealed that they are finalising negotiations with the cooperatives so that sugar production starts at the beginning of next month.
“From next month when we shall start massive production of sugar, we have 3,750 acres of sugarcane that belongs to the cooperative societies. The ready cane will be distributed to the cooperative society members before it is cut,” he added.
Ms Joyce Laker, the chairperson of Atiak Outgrowers Cooperative Society, said they were disappointed that Naads had refused to pay their members.
“Naads told us many times that the initial harvest was theirs and that out-growers owned nothing there. This frustrated the farmers so much after spending a lot of their time working on the crop,” Ms Laker said.
She added that when farmers started protesting, that is when Naads was compelled to conduct verification of the farmers but deliberately delayed the process.
“Atiak Cooperative has extremely vulnerable groups and I have been begging Naads to release the money to support them. We have lost three of our members who were living with HIV/Aids in Pabbo Sub-county because they did not have food during this lockdown,” she said. Government owns 40 per cent stake in the company while the remaining stake belongs to Amina Hersi’s Horyal Investment Ltd.
The government has so far disbursed Shs52b to facilitate sugarcane production for the project and 28,841 acres of sugarcane has been planted to that effect.
In the initial harvest, the out growers shall receive 30 tonnes per acre, with the factory buying each tonne at Shs120,000.
But Mr Akena Ogik, the vice chairperson of Gem-pachilo Cooperative Society, told this newspaper that most of their members are very disgruntled due to delayed compensation.
“We are in a very volatile situation, we are being threatened day and night, members even abuse us and call us thieves but Naads and Horyal Investment Ltd kept quiet on us,” Mr Akena said.
Last Friday, Dr Samuel Mugasi, the Naads executive director, explained that the delayed payment was caused by late submission of membership files by the cooperative members that are to be compensated.
“We needed to know who the beneficiaries are because we cannot give out money without knowing who exactly is getting the money. If we had done it, that could have caused more chaos,” Dr Mugasi said.
Dr Mugasi acknowledged that although the factory was ready to produce sugar, it would only start after verification and subsequent distribution of the ready cane to the beneficiaries.
“We apologise for the delays, it has taken long. We are at 90 per cent now and we have finished verifying members of Atiak out-growers except Gem-pachilo society that we have not received their files yet,” he said.
the partnership
Naads has since 2016 established more than 15,000 acres of sugarcane plantation to feed the factory under a public-private-community partnership between government, the community and Horyal Investment Ltd. Under the partnership, the community under Atiak Outgrowers and Gem-pachilo cooperative societies were to plant cane on the land and weed the plantations. Once the cane was ready, the plantation, apportioned to the out-growers by Naads would be harvested and sold to the factory.
Source: Daily Monitor
