A row has erupted between legislators and ministers over the distribution of the 18 million hand hoes, which President Yoweri Museveni pledged ahead of the 2016 general election for six million households countrywide.
The lawmakers, majority from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), argue that instead of the Office of the Prime Minister and the agriculture ministry giving them a lead role in the distribution of the hoes, Government is working exclusively with ministers, a move MPs say directly undermines their influence in the constituencies where the hoes are being currently distributed.
Last week, the Government started the distribution of 800,000 hand hoes to households, mainly in the northern and West Nile region, targeting mainly farmers within districts that missed out on the tractors.
Ahead of the 2021 general election, the NRM lawmakers, who accuse the government of sidelining them, argue that the distribution of the hoes would have been ideal for them to milk political capital.
Addressing journalists at Parliament on Friday, SylviaAkello, the Woman MP for Otuke district, tasked the agriculture minister and the Prime Minister, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, with explaining why the distribution of hoes had been exclusively reserved for ministers.
“If this is how we are going to fulfill the manifesto by giving hoes to ministers, especially to those without constituencies, then we do not know what is happening? The Prime Minister should come out and explain,” she said.
Susan Amero, the Woman MP for Amuria District, also attacked ministers distributing hoes for what she described as “tarnishing” the political careers of MPs.
“Why should ministers who have received hoes go around tarnishing our names that hoes were given to all MPs and that some of us have sold off the hoes, instead of delivering them,” she said.
Bubulo West County MP appealed to the Government to involve lawmakers within the hoes distribution chain.
The distribution of hoes is being implemented by the Office of the Prime Minister, with the supervision and the monitoring under the Office of the President, by the NRM manifesto implementation unit.