WHITE ELEPHANT! Handpicked Arua value addition facility private operator rejected

BY ANDREW COHEN AMVESI           

The handpicked private operator for the multibillion Arua Value Addition Facility in Arua Central Division, Arua City has been rejected. M/S. Samisa Agro Ltd was centrally procured by the Ministry of Local Government officials to run the Arua value addition facility which has been lying idle since its commissioning in 2021.

However, the private operator who was bound to sign a working agreement with the Ministry was rejected on grounds that the local leaders of Arua City were not consulted.

Jackson Atima Lee Buti, the Arua Central Division MP rejected the proposal to handover the value addition facility during a recent meeting in which the Local Government officials presented a report to the Parliamentary Committee of National Economy.

In the report, the officials alleged that Arua value addition facility has remained non-operational since commissioning in 2021 due to failure by the urban council to attract a private operator and as a result, the ministry took a management decision to centrally procure M/S. Samisa Agro Ltd and that the contract was due for signature.

But speaking to journalists in Arua City on Saturday, Atima said he was tipped by a colleague in the committee about the move thus forcing his way into the meeting only to reject the private operator because they were not consulted as local leaders.

“When the Mister of Local Government, Raphael Magyezi visited Arua market to resolves issues which were raised by vendors, I took the Minister to inspect the value addition facility which was lying idle and indeed when the Minister visited, he found that this is a factory that can actually help the population here, promote PDM when the farmers begin to bring their products here. The Minister was actually surprised that this facility was redundant,” Atima said.

“He promised that within one month from his visit that was last year August, he will give instruction and this value addition facility will be handed over to the city leadership to procure a contractor within one month so the facility can be operational. We waited the whole of last year, nothing, this year started, nothing. I was waiting but the Minister later called me and said, he was coming to Arua and I now knew he was coming with all the instructions and documents to hand over the facility to the city leadership so that we can get a local contractor who will start operationalizing the value addition facility and eventually create employment opportunity for the local people,” Atima explained.

Atima said he couldn’t believe his ears when he was later told that officials from the Ministry of Local Government are presenting a report to the committee of National Economy that they have already handpicked a private operator for the Arua value addition facility.

“As we were waiting for the Minister, what surprised me is last week on Thursday, the staff of the Ministry of Local Government presented a document to the committee of National Economy that the value addition facility of Arua and Busia are not operationalized because the leaders have failed to get a contractor and two; because the city leadership has failed to get a contractor, they have already procured a contractor who is about to sign a contract to come and run this facility. And indeed, when I came across this, I was given documents and the information the staff of the ministry were relaying to the committee was false. Arua City leadership had not failed to procure a contractor.

“When I came and testified this to the committee, the members realized that the ministry staff were lying to them. So, I took this issue up and met the Minister. I want to thank Hon. Magyezi who later cancelled the signing of the contract between his staff and M/S. Samisa Agro Ltd, and also recalled all documents related to the same. Some of the staff who tried to design guidelines to operationalize this didn’t consult us the leaders where these value addition facilities are so as to give their views as far as developing the guidelines to operationalize the value addition facilities is concerned,” Atima added.

Atima thanked God that the handpicked contractor didn’t sign the agreement with the Ministry because all procurement processes were flouted by the ministry officials. Victor Lomori, the Arua Central Division Deputy Speaker said the value addition facility is now a ‘white elephant’ in the city.

He observed that as a council, they were yet to see how best the facility can be put into use because a lot of public funds has been invested in it.

Lomori equally acknowledged that the Minister had promised to handover the facility to the city authority to procure a local contractor to run it with the aim of giving about 70 percent of the jobs there to the local people.

“Now how can the city fail when you have not yet handed over the facility to them? As I speak now, we are still waiting for the ministry to hand over the facility to us and that is why, we as local leaders are joining our MP (Atima) in rejecting the handpicked operator (M/S. Samisa Agro Ltd),” Lomori said.

Arua value addition facility was one of the components of the Shs34.9bn African Development Bank funded Arua central market project.

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