Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) chief coordinator Gen Salim Saleh has distanced himself from being behind the demolition of St Peter’s Church Ndeeba.
Meeting the House of Bishops on Wednesday, Gen Saleh said he was not a mad person to grab a Church.
“I swear before you in the name of God that I am not involved in the church demolition issues,” he said.
Several media reports have been alleging that Dodovico Mwanje acted on behalf of Gen Saleh to demolish the church on Sunday night.
In the same meeting that took place at the headquarters of National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO), the Church of Uganda’s Archbishop The Most Rev Dr Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu,requested Government to include Church of Uganda in the national budget to support extension services, marketing of the farmers’ produce, inspections in Church of Uganda founded schools and hospitals.
According to the Archbishop, an accountable sum of UGX 50bn per annum would do for a start.
He further sought for provision of a milling machine to each Diocese for purposes of value addition.
About mechanized agriculture, the Archbishop noted that Church of Uganda had requested for tractors to boost agriculture and appreciated government for the few that have been received so far.
“We had earlier requested for 37 tractors for purposes of each Diocese having a tractor, and Government allocated only 10, and 2 of these are already delivered. We request that the remaining 8 are delivered, and an additional 27 availed to cover all Dioceses.” Archbishop Kaziimba.
The archbishop also noted the need for post-harvest handling as a means of value addition and one of the ways to assure buyers of harvests quality.
“The recent lockdown is a reminder to us all about post-harvest handling of the farmers’ produce. We request that a silo (or any other warehousing system that can serve the purpose) is established in each of the 37 Dioceses. This does not have to be under Church of Uganda management provided the services are available to our farmers.”
He further reminded the government team of the presidential pledge of seeds to farmers.
“The presidential pledge did not include beans and maize seeds for farmers. We now need them more than before, but on time for the planting season that is about to start. On average, 10,000kgs of beans seeds and another 10,000kgs of maize seeds will serve the purpose per Diocese (i.e. 370,000kgs of beans and 370,000kgs of maize).”
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