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The Wazalendo Monitoring and Evaluation team led by the C.E.O Col. Joseph Freddy Onata has praised Gen. Kale Kayihura for being a good leader who laid a strong foundation on which WSACCO still stands today.
The comments were made earlier this week during a field visit to Gen. Kayihura’s farm project called Katebe Business Farm, located in Kasagama, Lyatonde District
WSACCO is a savings and credit co-operative society in Uganda composed of Uganda People’s Defence Force personnel and their families, UPDF Reserve Forces, and staff of Uganda’s Ministry of Defence.
Col. Onata says the SACCO has been operationalized to enable members to save from other sources other than salary and use their business savings as collateral to enable them to borrow from the SACCO using their business savings.
While in Kasagama,the team visited over 8 projects run by the farm which included Banana plantation, Gonja plantation, pastures, Bee keeping, horticulture, goat, Ankole and Friesian cattle rearing, and value addition projects such as yoghurt production, Alkaline water production, production of crisps from Gonja and milling of banana flour.
Gen Kayihura told the M&E team that there is nothing that is produced from the farm that is sold in its raw form.
According Kayihura, Katebe Business Farm focusses on value addition adding that new partnerships have been formed with smaller farms in order to meet the excess demand for inputs.
The esteemed General says he secured a loan of 200 million shillings from WSACCO which enabled him pay for his daughter’s course in the United States of America.
The same monies also enabled him to finance the operations of the projects at Katebe Agribusiness Farm.
Katebe Yogurt and Gonja Crisps are enjoyed widely among households across Kampala and other regions in the country.
Kayihura narrated, that after leaving Public Service in 2013, he got time to utilize the land that he had bought in 1992 that had remained unproductive due to the kind of work that he was doing at the time which required him to be in office full time.
He further commended the President of Uganda H.E Yoweri Museveni who continues to preach concepts such as Agro industrialization which can be achieved through the Parish Development Model (PDM).
Gen Kayihura applauded the fallen Commander in Chief Gen Aronda Nyakairima for spearheading the establishment of WSACCO.
Kayihura stressed the importance of Public Private Partnerships to support the farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs to solve the problem of production.
Compiled by Charity N Namanya *Public Relations Manager- Wazalendo SACCO. *
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