Sheema District leaders have written a complaint about illicit, dubious and exploitation practices by Tropical Institute of Development Innovations (TRIDI) which is led by Clet Wandui Masiga.
In a letter dated October 25, obtained by this website, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), the Speaker and LC5 chairman allege that for close to three years, only 11 million has been remitted to the district yet shs 786 million has been collected from Sericulture project.
Background
The Commercialization of Sericulture and Apiculture Technologies and Innovations located at Rubare District farm is a joint venture between Sheema district local government and Uganda National Council for Science (UNCST) and Technology.
It was duly approved by the district council and an MOU signed late 2017 and early 2018 by the two parties as owners of the project.
Later UNCST designated TRIDI as per section 3.1 of MOU as the Project manager for the day to day running of the project activities.
However, until today neither UNCST nor TRIDI has ever provided to the district the following;
Proof that TRIDI was designated to work on behalf of the district and UNCST.
Terms and conditions under which TRIDI was supposed to work.
The authors of the letter sent to the Speaker of Parliament allege that
no quarterly meetings were held to share findings and review the progress, no sharing information about the project regularly, poor coordination on implementation of sericulture and apiculture project activities by the project manager.
They also indicated how the stakeholders in the Rubaare project were supposed to share profits.
Well aware that mulberry leaves begin to be fed to silk worms at 4 months of age and reaches the maximum yield at 18 months of age from planting, 26 acres of mulberry were planted in 2018, and each acre of mulberry on sale of cocoons fetches a minimum of 10,080,000 UGX per year.
The expected income from 26 acres was 262,080 000= per year.
“For the 3 years (assuming 2018 and 2019 were for mulberry establishment), for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, expected income was 786,Z40,000 (Seven hundred eighty-six million, Two hundred forty thousand only). Only 11,000,000= million shillings was remitted to the district for the entire project period and over 60 workers have been at the station working and rearing the silk worms since the said period. Fraud is suspected in this profit sharing clause,” reads a letter in parts.
