Fort Portal matooke traders protest high taxes

Matooke traders in Fort Portal have protested a Shs 500 tax that is levied off each bunch of matooke, saying it eats into their profits.

The Chairperson, Kitumba matooke market, Amos Gava says the situation has been exacerbated by recent low prices and the COVID-19 pandemic which have affected trade.

“In March, matooke prices went as low as Shs 500, but began to rise again in August to around Shs 4,000 now which is still low, and yet the Shs 500 tax has never been reduced,” he said.

Gava called upon the Fort Portal city council to look into the matter and save them from suffering even bigger losses.

”The tender board that determines the amount of tax to be paid should assist the matooke traders who are living a miserable life because of high taxes imposed on them.”

Paul Isingoma, one of the vendors at Kitumba matooke market, says he pays more in taxes each year than he is able to save during the same period.

“In a year, I spend Shs 3m on taxes and save only Shs 400,000 which is too little to support me and my family. The situation is much worse when matooke prices have dropped,” he said.

He says while they purchase matooke from farmers at relatively high prices, buyers from Kampala offer them little money for it, resulting in losses when they deduct taxes.

Isaiah Kiviri one of the vendors proposed that the tax be reduced to Shs 300.

“We know we must pay taxes for the maintenance of the market like cleaning and garbage collection. However, the tax is very high for us since we don’t earn much,” he said.

The Town Clerk of Fort Portal City Council, Innocent Ahimbisibwe noted the traders’ concerns but said the council cannot be of much help at the moment.

“They have to bear with us because the taxes were fixed when the tender was awarded and cannot be changed now,” he said.

Ahimbisibwe further observed that Fort Portal’s recently awarded city status will come at some cost to residents.

“Since we are now a city, we might make some changes that may either favour them or not, so they will bear with us since the standard of living is likely to increase,” he said.

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Over 600 groups register for Emyooga in Masindi

Over 600 groups in Masindi have been registered to benefit from the Presidential Initiative on Wealth and Job creation (Emyooga).

In July this year, the State Minister for Microfinance, Haruna Kyeyune Kasolo, officially launched the programme in Masindi district.

During the launch, the minister revealed that government would inject Shs 620m into each constituency to fund 19 selected clusters that include Boda-boda riders, salon, carpenters and taxi operators, welders, market vendors, Journalists, performing artists, mechanics among others.

Under the project, each enterprise group with a minimum of 30 members will receive up to Shs 30m in funding, which will be accessed as a revolving fund by members to boost their respective income-generating ventures, at interest rates as low as 5 percent annually.

According to Godfrey Bahemuka, the District Community Development Officer (DCDO) Masindi, people in the district have embraced the programme, and more than 600 groups have already been registered for it.

“We expect to register over 1000 groups in the entire Masindi district,” Bahemuka said.

According to statistics obtained from the DCDO’s office, 330 of the registered groups are from Masindi municipality, 215 from Bujenje County and 93 from Buruli County.

“Over 200 groups were submitted to microfinance support centre in the first slot and they are ready to receive the money.”

Bahemuka noted that the majority of individuals who have embraced the program include the produce dealers, women entrepreneurs, salon operators and market vendors.

“I am wondering why the bodaboda riders have not embraced the programme and yet they are many. In Masindi we have over 3000 bodaboda riders but only 32 have registered across the district,” he added.

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Child street vendors on the rise as schools remain closed

Kasese Municipal council authorities have expressed concern over the growing number of children that are taking up street vending following the closure of schools and some markets in Kasese town.

In March this year, government shutdown schools and weekly and monthly markets in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19. Consequently, many children of school-going age have resorted to vending of foodstuffs, mainly cooked maize, yellow bananas, vegetables, and fruits among others.

Commenting on the phenomenon, Kasese Town Mayor Godfrey Kabbyanga said, “We have temporarily allowed vendors to move their foodstuffs on the streets but not children; they were taken out of schools for fear of Coronavirus, not to go around selling food.”

The Mayor further threatened to arrest and prosecute any parents whose children would be caught engaging in vending.

“Their parents to are free to engage in the trade if they want to, but we are devising means to end children’s involvement in vending,” he said.

According to the Kasese District Health Officer, Dr. Yusuf Baseke, Kasese has recorded a total of 40 COVID-19 cases, 15 of which are from the community.

The Deputy Town Clerk, Kasese Municipal Council, Kayiri Kambasu said that the council was committed to limiting children’s exposure to the deadly disease.

Kabbyanga also noted with concern that several bars in the district were operating illegally, contrary to the presidential COVID-19 directives.

“We are compiling lists of such business, and we shall withdraw their licenses, because they are endangering the whole country.”

Children’s plight

The plight of children in Kasese was compounded by floods that hit the district in May this year, displacing hundreds, including children. According to a report by Kasese’s Local Government:

“While in the struggle to combat COVID-19, Kasese district experienced concurrently floods on the 7th, 10th and 20th May, 2020 affecting 9,916 households, 48, 947 people, with about 80% of being children.”

The report adds, “Unfortunately, because of the effects of the crisis on livelihoods, children are often the first to suffer. The crisis has the potential danger of pushing more of these already vulnerable children into child labor.”

According to the Kasese district Senior Labour Officer, Karafule Swaib, “Already there are an estimated 25,000 children in Kasese engaged in child labour.”

These children, he said, are now at even greater risk of dropping out of school altogether as they spend more time eking a living.

“Most children work because of the household’s poverty to provide for food, shelter, clothing, school fees, and scholastic materials (books and uniform),” he observed.

In Kasese, child labour is commonly employed in agriculture, sand mining, brick making, stone quarrying, boda boda, street and market vending, fishing and car washing, while others are involved in child prostitution.

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MAAIF tractors prove costly to farmers due to frequent breakdowns

In a bid to boost productivity in the agricultural sector through mechanization, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) recently supplied at least two tractors to each district across the country.

114 districts benefited from the programme, with the tractors being given to farmer groups through the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS).

However, several beneficiary farmer groups are finding it difficult to maintain these tractors, saying they break down frequently and have become more of a liability than an asset.

In Kabarole district, Tooro Dairy Cooperative Society Limited and M9 Group Limited received tractors from MAAIF to help farmers improve on production.

The Chairperson board Tooro Dairy Cooperative Society Limited Edward Basaliza says their tractor breaks down often, specifically the arm lift which he says is small.

“The metals are of cast iron so they keep breaking all the time putting the expenditure way too high on the tractor. The maximum acreage it can plough per day are six only and it has a radiator that heats up after ploughing just four acres in hot areas,” he says.

He says the tractor would be capable of generating money over time if its maintenance costs were not so high. He says they have now replaced some of the missing metal parts though they are also not original.

“We are prioritizing durability over income for proper maintenance,” Basaliza says.

The story is not different with Kyegegwa Fruit Farmers Association (KFFA) where the Chairperson Emmanuel Mutungi says he has lost count of the number of times they have had to repair their tractor.

Mutungi puts the frequent breakdown of the tractor down to the “hard soils” in the region.

“The tractor itself is hard and it is working but the ploughs are soft and yet much of our land is virgin and it needs hard metal ploughs which don’t break so easily,” he says.

He however says using a tractor makes work easier and increases yields because it helps the farmers with good methods of farming, unlike using hoes.

Joshua Mbabazi, a member of Bunyangabu Revolutionary Farmers Group says they too have been tussling with repairing the tractor which breaks down repeatedly.

He says each beneficiary group contributed 20 percent of the cost of purchasing the tractors as a way of enforcing ownership and proper management.

“We didn’t pay the money in cash but the district production department assessed our financial accounts to ensure that we had the 20 percent which would be used in maintenance of the tractors that we received,” Mbabazi says.

He says farmers who are not affiliated to any farmer organization hire the tractors at a cost set by the beneficiary farmer organization.

The Kabarole District Production Officer, Dr. Salvatore Abigaba, says mechanizing agriculture is the way to go and these tractors are helping farmers by easing their work.

He however says he has received complaints from the farmer groups that got tractors that the ploughs are very weak because they are made of cast-iron instead of steel, which causes them to break down time and again.

He advises the affected farmer groups to log in a formal complaint so that the suppliers can fix the problem before the guarantee expires.

The farmer groups told theCooperator that they charge members between Shs 80,000 and 120,000 for ploughing an acre of virgin land, while non-members pay Shs 160,000 to 200,000 depending on the distance to the farm.

Despite all the above challenges, the farmer groups confessed that the tractors have helped them increase their production.

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