“Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has tasked the Ministry Agriculture to explain circumstances under which Shs7.3Mn was spent on the purchase of each goat, yet the majority of the goats bought ended up dying within the first week after distribution, with auditors blaming the supplier of intentionally supplying sick & emaciated goats to Government” (…) “Steven Kajura, Project Coordinator at the Ministry of Agriculture defended the cost spent on each goat saying the goats were bought from South Africa and were of a higher pedigree explaining, “The goats were got from South Africa & Namibia, we bought high pedigree animals and that cost includes cost insurance and flight so it came to Shs7.3Mn. The exotic pedigree animals are usually very expensive, you are free to google and you will come to around the same range.”” (Parliament Watch, 04.03.2024).
When the Daily Monitor wrote a piece about goat versus sheep rearing in 2021, they most likely didn’t think it would be this relevant. Even with rising prices and inflation. The stipulations of the 2021 article is sufficient to say that the government, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Project Coordinator who bought the goats overspent money on every single transaction.
We have now heard the testimony that the government spent 7,3 million shillings per goat. In a nation where the prices depending on the age of the goat goes from 150,000 shillings to about 550,000 shillings. That’s the prices which the Daily Monitor said in 2021 and most likely has changed, but not tripled or quadrupled over the years. Even Harvest Money article on the matter from 2023 stated the going price for a one year old good crosses goes for around 150,000 to 200,000 shillings. Which all states the fact that the government paid way over price for the animals.
They should show proof of purchase and not only the words of the Project Coordinator. The proof of transactions and the imports of the goats. As this is such a wastage of public funds. The idea of paying millions per goat when they go for much less domestically. If the government was sincere about “value for money” they would have bought it from the local market. You know “buy Uganda, build Uganda”. However, that is just empty sloganeering and not modus operandi.
It is just special that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) would do things like this. Spend money like tomorrow and waste it on goats that died quickly after being distributed. They spent millions upon millions on goats and they never added any value. The goats just died and didn’t serve their purpose. That’s pure wastage of public funds and lacking oversight of the project itself. Not that is this is new either, as there are plenty of government programs that has money, but no mechanisms to safeguard a purchase. Which is what we have seen with plenty of government programs and the goats is just the latest scandal.
This isn’t even a big scandal, but a minor one, which is just a reflection of how the NRM operates. It isn’t new, but a pattern. We can just wonder who ate the money and who gained “profits” from the tender or the purchase of the goats. Because when you have such an overpriced product/item someone is skimming over the top. It just have to happen and someone acknowledge the transaction and got a cut. With this sort of money… there is gatekeepers and people who found a way to eat. That’s the reality here.
It might never be revealed, but when goats costs in the millions and they die after a short time. You know the whole deal was shady and someone earned a fortune on it. The kickbacks and the envelopes ended somewhere… it is undeniable and we can wonder where. Peace.
MinBane 