Coffee farmers in Lwengo district accused UPDF officers-in-charge of Operation Wealth Creation Program of supplying them with poor quality coffee seedlings. “The seeds are not of good quality.” The farmers said they are supplied with seedlings whose quality is below that stipulated by the Uganda Coffee Development Authority guidelines. They said the seedlings they have been receiving do not germinate easily and when they do, they are susceptible to light variations in temperature. “They give us the seeds past the season and when we plant the seeds, they instantly dry up.” “They supply the coffee seedlings in polythene sacks and when they are planted they suddenly dry up.”

The disgruntled farmers that also accused the UPDF officers of fraudulently inflating the quantities and costs of coffee seedlings distributed to farmers. The officers were accused of forcing the suppliers of the seedlings to sell them the seedlings at very low prices. “Lt. Col. Nsobya the in-charge of Lwengo insisted that I sell each seedling at 100 shillings to him or I would not supply,” Mushabe said he wrote to the Minister of Agriculture Vincent Ssempija over the poor quality supplies and fraud by the UPDF officers but he had not received a reply. He now wanted Gen. Salim Saleh the Head of Operation Wealth Creation Program to intervene in the matter. However, Lt. Col. Fred Nsobya the Operation Wealth Creation Officer-in-charge of Bukoto Mid-West Constituency dismissed the claims made by Arnold Mushabe and the other farmers. “I cannot purchase coffee seedlings from the nursery without the permission of the regulator, UCDA.”

Operation Wealth Creation was established by President Yoweri Museveni in 2013 to create a system that facilitates effective National Social Economic Transformation through improving household incomes. It was later to take on the mandate of the National Agricultural Advisory Services Program which was scrapped in 2014.