Kampala, Nov. 8 - Uganda's coffee companies have lost up to $4 million due to coffee thefts this year, the state-run Uganda Coffee Development Authority, or UCDA, told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday.
An official with UCDA said the government is working closely with security agencies in Kenya to tackle the thefts which are believed to be on the increase due to high coffee prices on the world market.
Security officials in Kenya and Uganda have agreed to hold joint meetings every month to share intelligence information and plan to conduct joint operations to stop the problem, the authority official said.
The UCDA gave these assurances a day after the managing director of one of Uganda's leading coffee exporters warned that the sharp rise in thefts of coffee during transit this year may prompt international exporters to blacklist the country.
David Barry of Kyagalanyi Coffee told the state-run New Vision newspaper that coffee exporters have lost billions of shillings as coffee thefts have shot up this year.
He told the paper that two containers were stolen from the company last year but already this year 16 have been taken, and that the company lost $500,000 between May and October in container thefts.
The thieves target the trucks carrying coffee to the port of Mombasa in Kenya. They open the containers' doors without breaking the seals and steal the coffee, so that the container reaches its destination empty.
Uganda is Africa's leading robusta coffee producer, exporting up to 98% of its annual output in bean form mainly through Mombasa to the European Unions.
Uganda exported up to 2.7 60-kilogram million bags in the 2006-07 season.