President Museveni has challenged Ugandans in the coffee sector to engage in value addition in a bid to maximise profit returns.
Museveni made the remarks during the opening of the second G25 African Coffee Summit on Tuesday at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
He said the global demand is now 160million bags of 60kgs each but the farmers who hustle to grow the crop are not benefiting enough from it because they sell it raw.
“In the last 60years, I have been involved in the struggle against this modern slavery for Africa ─ the curse of producing raw-materials for cleverer people in the world to add value to those raw-materials and get much more value from them. A kg of bean coffee of good quality, may go for US$2.5 per kg. The same quantity of coffee roasted, ground and packaged may go for US$40.”
Museveni revealed it is not only the loss of money per kg but also the loss of jobs. He cited if the whole spectrum of raw-materials from agriculture, minerals, forest products is taken to the western countries, it will be a massive loss to Africa.
“That is why the economy of Africa is stunted. The GDP of the whole massive African continent, with a population now of about 1.5billion people is USD2.7trillion. It must be pointed out that even this USD2.7trillion is a recent development because the African economies are said to be growing at a fast rate compared to others in the world,” he said.
“Otherwise, Africa’s GDP was only USD500billion some years ago. However, much of that growth may be quantitative, not qualitative producing more raw-materials.”
He however, recalled that right from the 1960s, his government has put forward the strategy of building the country’s economy as an independent, self-sustaining one, with both vertical and horizontal integration.
In this, he said they have succeeded in some sectors, such as the dairy, fisheries, textiles, sugar, leather but they are still losing in many others including the coffee sector on account of this distortion.
“Of the US$460billion global coffee value, the coffee producing countries only take US$25billion and Africa gets only US$2.4billion, with US$845million going to Uganda because we are now producing 8million, 60kgs each, bags plus now.” Museveni said.
“A non-coffee producing country like Germany, earns US$6.85billion.This is part of the iniquities of the present global parasitic system.”
He added that some years ago a western company proposed to mine uranium and after export it to their country for purposes of generating nuclear energy for electricity and other uses such as medicine but he denied the request.
“I asked them have you heard a rumour that there are human beings here in Uganda who need electricity, nuclear medicine and vector control services? Why don’t you propose to build that capacity here for the benefit of these human beings who live in Uganda and, maybe, we can put aside some quantity of uranium for supporting the economies of our friends in the West?” They never came back,” Museveni noted.
He said it is important that producers of raw-materials add value to their products so that they can earn more from their sweat and create more jobs for the youth instead within the country.