Minister of Agriculture Vincent ssempijja

The minister told MPs that the investigations carried out over consumption of poisonous cassava variety show that two children in Mulikiti parish and Panyangasi  in Rubongi sub county  eat this cassava and died .

He said that in Bugiri district, five sub counties were affected which caused the death of seven young people and others hospitalized. He attributed the death to the eating of a bitter and poisonous  cassava variety known as  mangana which is meant for processing cassava flour and it was eaten by these people due to lack of food caused by a long drought that hit the eastern region and other parts of the country.

The Minister also revealed that people had resorted to growing of this poisonous cassava variety to stop stray animals destroying it and thieves stealing it since it needs a lot of time process and utilize it. He said that the ministry has started sensitizing the people in eastern region on dangers of eating poisonous cassava variety without proper processing.

He said that Bugiri,Tororo and Busia districts to receive  2000 planting material bags of sweet cassava varieties to be given to people in affected villages  . He said that government plans to establish 250 acres of cassava mother gardens in these districts where farmers will pick stem cutting materials for planting to abandon the poisonous variety.

The post Poisonous cassava kills nine in North Eastern Uganda first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

The findings are contained in a 2015/16 report that was handed over to Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga at the Parliamentary building by the Chairperson Equal Opportunities Commission, Sylivia Muwebwa Ntambi on Wednesday.

Hon. Rebecca Kadaga the Speaker of Parliament.

Kadaga later lamented that the report was a total embarrassment to the eastern region where she also hails from.

“This is the reason I have started giving text books to schools in Busoga to narrow the gap. We need to bring on board all stakeholders so that we reverse this trend. Children need to get quality education throughout Uganda and we need to see good results,”Kadaga said.

According to the report, the worst performing sub region primary education include Busoga, Teso and Bukedi and these are followed by West Nile, Lango and Acholi. The report mentions the best performing regions in Primary Education as those in Buganda, Ankole, Kigezi, Toro and Bunyoro.
The report further shows that the Eastern region contributes 73% of the poor performing districts of which six are in Busoga  and these include kaliro,Iganga,,Luuka ,Bugiri ,mayuge and Buyende.

It indicates that schools in municipalities perform better than those in main district local governments with performance disparity of 21% for male against 22% of female students.

The findings also reveal that districts within the northern, eastern and West Nile regions are trailing in terms of primary education performance as the chairperson Equal opportunities explains

Ntambi attributed the performance disparities in schools to  poor school inspections by districts education officials, lack of head teacher commitment ,high pupil text book ratio ,poor relationship between the school and the community and refusal of parents and the community to execute their roles in the process of educating a child.

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