KAMPALA, Uganda — For years, the promise from the presidency was as consistent as the seasons: the age of the hand hoe was ending. In its place, a fleet of steel and diesel would transform the hills of Gulu and the plains of Soroti, catapulting the nation’s smallholder farmers into the modern era.
But today, those tractors remain largely a phantom. According to a scathing whistleblower petition sent to the Office of the President and reviewed by our reporters, the flagship agricultural mechanization program has been crippled by a familiar shadow: systemic procurement irregularities and allegations of high-level corruption within the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF).
The petition paints a portrait of a government initiative derailed not by a lack of funding, but by the very bureaucracy tasked with its success. For more than three years, the whistleblower alleges, internal evaluation committees have manipulated bidding processes to favor specific suppliers, effectively stalling the delivery of equipment to thousands of desperate cooperatives.
The stakes for President Yoweri Museveni could not be higher. Agriculture is not merely a sector of the Ugandan economy; it is its lifeblood, employing the vast majority of the population. The president has staked significant political capital on the idea that mechanization is the only path to middle-income status.
The plan was ambitious: a tiered distribution of four-wheel tractors for large-scale operations and nimble two-wheelers for women and youth groups. Yet, the whistleblower’s letter describes a “paralyzed” implementation. Farmer organizations that submitted applications in 2022 are still waiting for word, their fields remaining tilled by hand as the equipment they were promised sits in a warehouse of administrative limbo.
The Donor Exodus
Perhaps most damaging is the reported flight of international development partners. According to the petition, the irregularities have become so transparent that donors, who provide the financial scaffolding for such large-scale reforms, are pulling back.
The whistleblower claims that procurement reports have been repeatedly rejected by these partners for failing to meet basic benchmarks of transparency and competitiveness. “No further funding will be released,” the letter warns, until the ministry can prove its processes are not “fixed” to benefit a handful of well-connected insiders.
Deepening Regional Disparities
The delay has been felt most acutely in Northern Uganda, a region still recovering from decades of conflict and earmarked as a priority for the two-wheel tractor rollout. In districts like Lira and Gulu, the absence of this technology means more than just lower yields; it represents a broken contract between the state and its citizens.
Ministry officials have previously pointed to the need for “rigorous quality assurance” as the cause for the delay, arguing that rushing procurement leads to waste. But to the whistleblower and the farmers they represent, these explanations have begun to ring hollow—a convenient mask for a culture of impunity.
