The Local Management Unit (LMU) consists of the
following:
Mr. Fred Mwesigye (Part-time National Project
Coordinator and Commissioner, Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry)
Ms Deborah Kyarasiime (Project Assistant)
Mr Chris Baine (Full-time Technical Advisor)
Mr Apollo Kamugisha (Associate Project Coordinator
for Coffee sector)
Mr Hans Muzoora (Associate Project Coordinator
for Cotton sector).
The host Ministry for the project is the Ministry
of Trade, Tourism and Industry (MTTI). The project office is located
in the Farmers’ House, Kampala in which the headquarters of
the MTTI is located.
The key players include the two commodity boards:
Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and the Cotton Development
Organisation (CDO).
The Uganda WRS Model
The progress made in Uganda
up to now includes the following:
A Warehouse Receipt Systems Bill has now been passed
in Uganda to provide a regulatory framework within which the system can
develop. To facilitate its passage through ensuring understanding
of the concept as well as garner support behind the
Bill, workshops were organised targeting key stakeholders and
parliamentarians representing the Sessional Committees on agriculture,
finance and trade. Two study tours to Tanzania were also organised
for stakeholders to enable them to acquaint themselves with how
the WRS works, since Tanzania has made more
progress in terms of piloting the systems for coffee and cotton.
A market information system (MIS) has been established
in Uganda, initially for the coffee sector. The MIS is expected
to be sustainable due to its reliance on available capacity within
UCDA on information collection and dissemination. Information
dissemination is via local media - newspapers and broadcasting
bulletins. Price information on coffee (and later to include cotton)
is also being disseminated via SMS messaging. A private service
provider – True Africa - is providing this service to UCDA.
The information provided covers prices of Arabica
and Robusta coffee in the main coffee producing districts.
Training in coffee quality assurance has been
provided to, especially coffee producers. The main resource persons
were from the UCDA.
The outcomes of the WRS pilots are reported
below per commodity.
Removing debris from coffee
Progress Made in Coffee Sector Pilot
Coffee is Uganda's premier export commodity, accounting
for up to 55% of the countries foreign exchange earnings. Over 90%
of Uganda’s coffee is Robusta, and comes from the Lake Victoria
zone. Arabica is mainly grown near Mt Elgon in the East. Coffee
production is mainly by smallholder farmers.
The key features of the Uganda Coffee WRS are:
Certified Warehouse Operators include Bugisu
Cooperative Union, Muhame Cooperative Society and Banyankole Kweterana
Cooperative Union.
A collateral management company – Cotecna,
has been appointed to issue Warehouse Receipts and to manage deposited
stocks.
Depositors include farmer groups, including
those under NUCAFE,
Cooperative Societies, Area Cooperative Marketing Enterprises
and some medium-scale traders.
Allied Bank is participating in the WRS Project.
However, the coffee deposits received during the two pilots were
sold directly after depositing and did not require any inventory-backed
bridging finance.
Most of the coffee was sold directly to exporting
companies before processing
Robusta deposited in the designated warehouse
in Mbarara (Western Uganda) was sold by auction through the Uganda
Commodity Exchange.
Volumes deposited since the launch of the WRS
project pilots have been small.
Further farmer sensitisation, training and mobilizing
programmes have been planned for the Central and South-Western regions,
focusing on Ntungamo and Bushenyi areas, to ensure improved uptake
of the WRS for the coming coffee season.
Progress Made in Cotton Sector Pilot
Although cotton is produced widely in Uganda,
most production is concentrated in the Northern and Eastern regions
of the country. Cotton is produced mainly by smallholder farmers.
Over 90% of the cotton produced in Uganda is for the export market.
The cotton pilot involves two main farmer groups,
one from Kasese and the other from Bushenyi area. The societies
together have over 120 farmers.
Most of the participating farmer groups belong
to Nyakatonzi Co-operative Union (NCU). The NCU has been reported to be purchasing new gin stands
in anticipation of increased deposits.
NCU is providing
toll ginning services to the farmer groups as well as warehousing
facilities.
As with the coffee pilots, COTECNA is providing
collateral management for the cotton pilots.
By end of February 2006, one month into the pilot, over
100,000 kg of seed cotton had been deposited.