Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) is doing extremely well – the volume of inputs. The impact is enormous irrespective of the fact that the extension is not good, the impact is there.

That was the conclusion of the Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit (BMAU) of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED)  on the performance of OWC. BMAU shared its conclusion of its view that OWC is doing extremely well during the Joint Agriculture Sector Annual Review (JASAR) 2016.

Perhaps, before I apply logical analyses on the BMAU conclusion of OWC’s enormous impact during the financial year 2015/2016, let me first share what I understood as what BMAU communicated during the JASAR 2016 as the basis – the premise – on which it arrived at its conclusion:

1. BMAU sampled 61 farmers were.
2. The 61 farmers it sampled received all the inputs that were earmarked to them.
3. The 61 farmers it sampled received all the value addition equipment.
4. BMAU observed that there is abrupt delivery of OWC inputs – some of them left at police stations for collection in the following days.
5. In some cases, BMAU observed that there were no holding -grounds for OWC delivered animals – grounds where the animals would have been kept and treated prior to distribution to beneficiaries.
6. OWC inputs were not delivered on plan noted BMAU – therefore, according to BMAU farmers were not ready – for example, a farmer is picked to grow mangoes when said farmer has never grown mangoes, but just because OWC has brought mangoes.
7. In Maracha District, BMAU found that 200 kilograms of OWC maize was delivered late, farmers could not pick it at the time the maize was delivered and so by the time the famers came for the seed it was too late.
8. Items received by 27 (44 percent) of the BMAU sampled farmers it found had issues of low survival rates; animal mortality; and of non-functional equipment.
9. BMAU found that farmers, in some instances, had taken the OWC seed, washed it and eaten it as food.
10. There are so many OWC facilities, like the maize mill in Buikwe, which BMAU found to be not functional. Another example, in Isingiro that BMAU gave was an OWC milk-cooler which had been there for one year and it was not functional.

If an output be “the act of producing something, the amount of something that is produced or the process in which something is delivered”, it appears that the premise on which BMAU based its conclusion that “the impact is enormous” of OWC is mostly immediate output indicators and not impact indicators. Right from premise (1) all the way to premise (7) the BMAU simply described OWC recipients and the manner in which OWC made deliveries – which is consistent with the definition of outputs.

Utilising deductive logic, therefore, it is illogical to accept the conclusion of the BMAU of “the enormous impact” of OWC on the basis of its premises (1) to (7). This is because it does not always automatically follow that if inputs are procured, delivered and farmers have received them, that those inputs procured, delivered and received will necessarily cause enormous impact. Continue to the full analysis here