Parliament has repealed the Uganda Trypanosomiasis Control Council and moved its functions to the Ministry of Agriculture, because the Council has fulfilled its mandate of eliminating sleeping sickness in Uganda, thus the need to relieve Gov’t of the financial burden imposed by this Council’s continued operation.
David Bahati, Minister of State for Industries who held docket for the Minister of Agriculture, defended the proposal arguing, “The purpose of this bill is to resolve the Council and transfer the functions of this Council and the Secretariate to the Ministry of Agriculture relieving the Government of the financial burden imposed by this Council and by making this, we think we shall be making a substantial contribution to the agricultural sector by streamlining the functions of this Council and bring efficiency and effectiveness to the operations of the Ministry.” said Bahati.
However, Theodore Ssekikubo (Lwemiyaga County) protested the absence of all the four Ministers in the Agriculture during the processing of the bill, accusing them of disrespecting the over 80% Ugandans employed in the Agriculture sector, for not showing up to process the rationalisation bills in the sector.
“This is a very important bill that concerns us in as far as tsetse fly control is concerned and I note with concern, the sheer neglect of this core Ministry where by, 80% of our people, but to have a Ministry of four Ministers who are ordinarily the ones to stand in this docket, the business in this House isn’t for formality, they should respect Ugandans who wait to see them discharge duties on their behalf. I know you had magnanimously allowed it to go on, but we don’t look good,” said Ssekikubo.
