The management of Teso’s sole juice processing factory (Soroti Fruits Limited) the official makers of TEJU juice have fired back at Members of Parliament on Trade, Tourism and Industry over claims that the juice at the factory is unhealthy noting that TEJU juice is the best product compared to other brands of juice being processed in the country.
The comments from the factory comes after the MPs on Trade, Tourism and Industry headed by the committee chairperson Mwine Mpaka recently claimed that the juice being produced and sold to consumers is unhealthy juice and harmful for human consumption.
The MPs also grilled the Soroti fruit factory officials for alleged manual packaging of the juice and misusing funds worth Uganda Shillings 44.5 billion. The said funds were meant for the betterment of the factory.
Dokolo Woman Member of Parliament Cecilia Ogwal noted in her remarks that the current poor management of the factory needs to be handled following the allegations that the fruits are being manually packed in the factory something she says will lead to the temporal closure of the factory.
Jonathan Ebwalu of Soroti City West Division also raised concern over quality assurance at Soroti Fruit Factory, saying that brown water was allowed to go into the production of juice, which later caused a product recall in 2020
Susan Amero the Amuria district Woman MP said the recall of the juice from the market posed a serious health risk and tasked the factory officials to explain how the retuned juice is disposed of.
But Douglas Ndawula the Chief Executive Officer Soroti Fruit Factory says that juice being produced in Soroti is the best while calling on the MPs to stop interfering with the running of the factory.
“We have the best juice in the market, the committee of trade, tourism and industry have their expertise as our leaders and politicians but they can’t be scientists and they lack expertise and knowledge on juice processing. For them to come out with such statements is absurd for our local product, There is no basis for their claims but rather selfish,” He said.
“If the committee is saying our product is not good for consumption, what scientific results do they have? What scientific basis? We are using the well-known laboratories, we test on daily basis and we have the best result, for them what results do they have?” He questioned.
He noted that whatever the MPs are doing is playing cheap politics and cheap popularity at the expense of farmers.
“What MPs are doing is cheap Politics and cheap popularity at the expense of farmers and me I don’t take it lightly but that’s just cheap politics,” Ndawula bitterly said.
Mr. Ndawula also refuted the allegations that the factory is buying fruits from outside countries saying that the fruits being consumed by the factory are Ugandans fruits and encourages the MPs to advocate for the expansion of the factory.
He has tasked MPs to ask Uganda Revenue Authority to give them a report of imported goods to the country and companies that are importing the products if they are still insisting that the factory is importing fruits.
“We do not import fruits as alleged from countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Congo and Tanzania. We only buy fruits from Ugandan farmers and each truck that comes to us, enters with a letter from the LCI of the area of residence, District Commercial Officer or District Agricultural Officer confirming that the fruits are from that region. Our leaders should be more sensible and articulate, if Soroti Fruit Factory is importing then URA has that data. If the data is not in place then you shut up and apologize to the public because you misled the public,” He noted.
“We are the biggest producers of quality pulp and concentrates, so those are just cheap sentiments from people who want cheap popularity and those who think they know more about the project. So we neither import Fruits, Concentrate or pulp, on the contrary farmers have confirmed that they import fruits to Kenya and the issues is just simple expand the factory and stop cheap politics,” He added.
