President Museveni demands accountability for the Shs37 billion disbursed for coffee value chain

President Yoweri Museveni has asked the Minister for Science, Technology, and Innovation Dr. Monica Musenero, to avail the record of accounts and all accountability documents for an internal Audit, in regards to the funds disbursed towards Coffee Value Chain.

In a letter addressed to the Coffee Investment Consortium Uganda (CICU), the president seeks to know the technical progressive report against the milestones towards the coffee value chain.

“His Excellency the President is requesting for an update on how far we have gone following the disbursement of the funds worth UGX. 37billion (Thirty-Seven Billion Uganda Shillings) towards Coffee Value Chain,” read the letter.

This letter comes at a time when there has been a scuffle on X formerly twitter, between Robert Kabushenga a coffee farmer and Nelson Tugume the head of Coffee Investment Consortium Uganda (CICU).

According to Kabushenga, a political order was given that $20 million was disbursed to Tugume Nelson, with the money meant to finance the coffee export trade.

However, he said, this money has since ended up in Nelson’s private account and is no longer accessible.

“He has vanished with the money. This whole coffee value addition story is simply a scam. Clearly nothing good will ever come to us coffee people from the Government. It is time to organize ourselves privately and find solutions for our business. There is no hope,” he said.

Kabushenga stated that Tugume is spending part of the taxpayer’s money to build his “factory for instant coffee” in Ntungamo and in the unlikely event that he executes this; it will be his private business.

He alleged that there is also the small matter of hundreds of thousands of dollars he (Nelson Tugume) obtained from Mastercard foundation, through the private sector foundation Uganda.

Kabushenga said, “He has obdurately refused to pay back or even account for it. Yet this is the person that was presented to Uganda’s Cabinet and to a meeting in South Africa of so called leading local exporters as the main local coffee exporter. It was here that the $20m request was tabled and passed as small money,”

In response the Coffee Investment Consortium Uganda (CICU) on behalf of Tugume called on Kabushenga to retract, correct, and apologise for his malicious social media comments that are false, defamatory, and highly damaging.

Last year, President Museveni authorised the Finance Ministry to set aside $10 million (Shs 37 billion) as a coffee export fund, to allow exporters access to the required capital to procure large quantities of coffee from farmers for value addition and export.

MPs had rejected this idea, saying the project was a non-starter.

The coffee fund project was heavily promoted by the Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID) under the leadership of Odrek Rwabwogo.

In May 2023, Rwabwogo said the coffee fund was meant to underwrite invoices for 21 coffee firms that had had limited market presence for years.