By witnessradio.org Team
Masaka – Kampala – Gerald Ssenyondo aged 80 years, resident of Mpuugwe village, Mukungwe sub-county, Masaka district is under total fear over the failure of the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL) to return his title.
Ssenyondo’s title is one of the 568 that are reportedly missing.
According to the residents, the company has not handed the titles back to the respective owners.
The titles belonging to several residents in the sub-counties of Matanga, Kalagala, Samaria, and Mukungwe, were allegedly surrendered to the UETCL in 2016, for purposes of cutting off 40-meters (wayleave) for its higher voltage power line.
Ssenyondo with over 20 acres of land is worried that land grabbers may take the opportunity to grab their land.
“They only told us the exercise of cutting off the agreed land would only take 6 months; it is now getting to 3 years. They keep tossing us with no positive feedback,” Ssenyondo added.
Mbulire Kalumba, another resident with a title whose land is being occupied by over 1000 families in Kitenga A and B says that the company has neither fulfilled its promises nor answered as to why it’s still holding their titles.
“We have over a sq. mailo of land and it occupies more than 1000 families, what happens when we are evicted, where do we go!” Kalumba said.
The UETCL community liaison officer Julius Kamukama said the company handed over the titles in question to the commissioner of land titles in the lands’ ministry in Kampala after it had cut off the required 40-meter land corridor, where the higher voltage power line passes.
He also revealed that the residents were duly compensated.
“The affected residents were compensated up to the tune of sh35b, basing on the report of the Chief Government Valuer,” Kamukama said.
The spokesperson of the ministry of lands and urban development, Mr. Dennis Obbo admits having knowledge about the project but requested more time to investigate further.
He also advised them to either lodge a beneficiary caveat to protect their land or have a land search to find out the status of their land.
Two years ago, UETCL commissioned the 220kV Kawanda- Masaka transmission line project, which will evacuate power from the Bujagali and the proposed Karuma 600MW Hydropower Station and from other hydropower stations that will serve as a high-voltage backbone for the proposed regional grid interconnection projects with Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
