MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Kira Municipal Bosses Sued Over Land Grabbing In COVID-19 Road Scam

Published

4 years ago

June 25, 2020

Part of the land that is under contention

A city businessman has rushed to court to stop Kira Municipality officials from forcefully grabbing his land to open up an illegal road.

Harold B. Ssemalwadde, the Managing Director of logistics giant Globe Trotters Ltd sought court redress accusing the municipal bosses led by Mayor Julius Mutebi of orchestrating a plot to deprive him of his land through coercion and violence.

In his plaint filed through his lawyers of Barnabas DK Dyadi & Co. Advocates at the High Court Land Division in Kampala, Ssemalawadde wants court to direct the Kira Municipality officials to halt any attempts of illegally running a road through his land.

This is on the grounds that on top of killing his business that employs hundreds of Ugandans, the road construction is fueled by the alleged behind-the-scenes corruption and influence-peddling that government has already stated to be the greatest enemy stifling economic growth in Uganda.

DETAILS

According to court documents seen by this publication, the current land row traces its roots to 2010, when, following exponential growth of his company, Ssemalwadde bought land measuring over 15 acres at Bbuto-Bweyogerere, intending to relocate the business which was by then situated at Kiwatule-Ntinda in Kampala district.

Later, he further expanded the initial plot by acquiring more neighbouring plots of the land situated at the border of Wakiso and Mukono districts. By that time, most of this land lay idle, with just a portion of it being used for clay mining and bricklaying as a well as vegetable growing in the swamp thereon.

And as a law abiding Ugandan investor, Ssemalwadde in 2012/13 approached Kira Municipality land office to process the requisite legal documentation for his land.

Particularly, Ssemalwadde presented his site plan. This clearly showed that off his land title he had curved a road meant to feed into his over 25 acres of his logistics hub for approval.

And given the nature of his business, he ensured that the road that branched off the main Sonde-Bweyogerere road was wide enough and well tarmacked to ease the movement of trucks/his clients to and from his business.

This was also done upon realization that the nearest main (Bbuto- Kiwanga) road was about a kilometer away yet it was the sole one that was being used as a major access for all existing neighboring companies/businesses like the Kiwanga Poultry Farm and Kiwanga Thermal Power Plant. Ssemalwadde explains that he opted to open his own road after experts assessed that because his business involved heavy trucks turning all the time, it was wise for him to have a separate road for them so as not to disrupt traffic flow on the murram road that was being used by his neighbours and the general public. Besides that, the Bbuto-Kiwanga road is situated in Mukono district while his business is situated in Kira Municipality, Wakiso district.

TROUBLE BEGINS

Ssemalwadde avers that to date the Kira Municipality bosses are yet to return his approved plan despite several pleas and meetings over the same.

For instance, court records show that on September 19, 2016, Ssemalwadde wrote to the Kira Municipality Town Clerk complaining about lack of communication and feedback from the municipal council in respect to his plan.

Ssemalwadde further averred that he suspected that the municipal bosses were biding time so as to be able to alert the former Kira Mayor and his business allies about Ssemalwadde’s project with the aim of playing along the powerful politician’s whims.

The suspicions were confirmed when to his dismay; he learnt through rumors that the municipal officers were intending to construct a motorized access road through his land without his consent or knowledge.

As per their plan, the road would be an improvement of a footpath that connects to the gardens around his plot as well as to the drainage stream that separates Kiwanga in Mukono from Bbuto in Wakiso.

Unfortunately, this same road would only be constructed by breaking his perimeter wall so as to join the new road to the tarmac road that he constructed for his business (trucks and clients).

Ssemalwadde says that after getting wind of the rumours he approached the municipal officials and complained about their move.

He also highlighted to them the fact that the road through his company premises was unsafe to residents and his business as it exposed the former to accidents from turning trucks and the latter to theft of clients’ goods and general insecurity.

Initially, the two parties consented that the road was untenable given those circumstances. The municipal officials then suggested that he provides an alternative “footpath”.

Ssemalwadde says he did so by opening a footpath around his perimeter fence. He however admits that while the locals began using the new footpath, he did not block the old footpath through his land partly because he never wanted to tamper with the water table as advised by the environmental impact assessment report from NEMA.

COVID ROAD SPRINGS UP

Ssemalwadde says since then there has been harmony but trouble erupted afresh towards the end of March 2020 when, while observing the Covid-19 lockdown that saw him scale down on business at his company, his security guards summoned him to office.

This was after they had observed that some strange people were rolling culverts at night and stationing them at the point of the stream where they wanted to open the road.

Ssemalwadde says he contacted the police but on March 29, 2020, all hell broke loose when a group of vandals stormed his company with Mayor Julius Mutebi and demolished part of his wall fence for the construction of the earlier said road.

According to CCTV footage before court, Mutebi, using seemingly populist rhetoric, told the locals to “break the fence as no one can scare you since council approved what you’re doing.”

Further footage shows that the mob action was prior planned as the goons on site had two cars that were delivering water to them as the vandalism happened.

A distraught Ssemalwadde sought police intervention that later came and arrested a few of the vandals including John Okou, Wycliff Mulinge and Robert Mulinge among others.

Later, in early April, Ssemalwadde sought a meeting with Mutebi and his council. In the meeting that took place at the Globe Trotters company premises, mutebi shocked all and sundry when he admitted that whereas he was aware that there could have been some mistakes committed in vandalizing ssemalwadde’s perimeter wall, his hands were tied by majority and populist demands from his “voters”.

”I’m a politician and so I must always be on the people’s side; it doesn’t matter whether you (globe trotters) are right or not,” Mutebi is quoted saying in the meeting.

Corruption Cited

However, independent investigations have shown, according to court records that Ssemalwadde is a victim of influence peddling occasioned on the Kira Municipal bosses by his neighbor only identified as Herbert.

It is claimed that Herbert owns an expansive chunk of land next to Globe Trotters and has since used his privilege as a personal friend and business associate of the former Kira Municipality mayor to disadvantage Ssemalwadde.

Sources say that while the said land has only the Kiwanga-Bbuto road as the main access, its value and appeal will be elevated by an alternative road through Ssemalwadde’s company to the tarmac Bweyogerere-Sonde road.

This, it is suspected, is the invisible hand behind the current squabbles. It also explains why after years of tossing Ssemalwadde around in regard to his plan, the Kira municipal authorities rushed to open the road within a single day during the Covid-19 lockdowns when companies had been advised to either close business or scale down operations.

It has also emerged that police investigations discovered that as opposed to using area security, the Kira officials hired two LDU personnel from Katosi to guard the illegal road construction that was done by a single tractor.

LOSSES ALREADY

Ssemalwadde has told court that following the standoff, his clients including SPEDAG logistics firm have withdrawn business from him. He says the withdrawal came after the vandals stormed one of the customers’ containers, vandalized it and robbed goods worth shs450m.

“The said client was paying Shs15m daily but is now gone. Our business is being killed by mere populist politics yet it has been employing hundreds of vulnerable poor people within Bweyogerere and beyond but they are now all grounded because our customers are fleeing from the chaos every single day. This is why I want the honorable court to come to my rescue,” Ssemalwadde says. There have been claims that the contentious road has existed for over 30 years but Ssemalwadde says this is a lie that court can disprove by a single visit to the scene. The road is clearly a “covid-19 project!”

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MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Oil activities in Murchison Falls National Park threaten Wildlife Conservation – AFIEGO study reveals.

Published

2 days ago

July 25, 2024

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio team.

A study conducted by the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) and its partners has revealed that oil development activities are threatening the existence of Wildlife conservation at Murchison Falls National Park (MFNP).

Uganda has 10 National Parks including Queen Elizabeth, Lake Mburo, Murchison Falls, Kidepo Valley, Kibale, Mount Elgon, Rwenzori Mountains, Semuliki, Mgahinga Gorilla, and Bwindi Impenetrable National Parks and are managed by Uganda Wildlife Authority, (UWA).

Murchison Falls National Park, one of the oldest and most visited national parks in Uganda, is highly attractive to tourists due to its rich biodiversity. According to the Ministry of Wildlife, Tourism, and Antiquities’ 2024 report, Murchison Falls National Park received the highest number of tourists among all the national parks in Uganda between 2019 and 2023.

Data from Ministry of Tourism shows that in 2023, the Murchison park received 141,335 visitors which is equivalent to 36.4% of the 387,914 tourists that visited Uganda’s ten national parks.

The 24-page document titled Murchison Falls National Park is dying: How oil activities, climate change, and poaching are negatively reshaping the Park’ reveals that the Tilenga oil project infrastructural development presents immense risks to Murchison Falls National Park.

The Tilenga Oil project, part of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is operated by Total Energies E&P (U) B.V. According to the EACOP website, EACOP is being constructed in parallel with two upstream development projects known as Tilenga and Kingfisher respectively.

Between February and June 2024, AFIEGO and partners conducted research to assess the progress of the development of the Tilenga oil project infrastructure and to examine the impact of this infrastructure on biodiversity.

In Murchison Falls National Park, oil sector infrastructure such as drilling rigs, well pads, flowlines, pipelines, roads, and others are being developed to enable commercial oil production by TotalEnergies under the Tilenga oil project.

Findings reveal that there has been progress in developing oil sector infrastructure in park assessed through satellite images. According to the study analysis of May 2024, satellite imagery shows rapid development of the tens of well pads and clearing for roads and the pipeline network inside the park.

The progress in oil development has had chilling effects on humans and biodiversity. Findings from the study expressed growing concern and fear towards light pollution, increased poaching risks, and increased motorization. Elephants are invading different areas of residence because of vibrations from the oil rig.

Among the impacts seen is the escape of wild animals from the park and the killing of people neighboring it. The study reveals that between 2023 and April 2024 in Buliisa district, five people have been killed by elephants. Oil host communities that live around the Park reported that elephants are moving from the Park and are invading communities destroying croplands and killing people.

According to experts in the study, the elephants could feel the vibrations from the drilling rig in their feet which causes them to move away from the Park and into communities.

The study also noted that the Tilenga oil project drilling rig is responsible for increasing light pollution in the Park and the surrounding communities. The light from the rig can be seen at long distances up to 13.9km away. Concerns were raised by this research’s respondents, who observed that the feeding and other patterns of nocturnal and light-sensitive wildlife could be negatively impacted by the rig’s light pollution. Such wildlife includes leopards, lions, birds, and others. These could migrate from the Park, or suffer worse impacts such as death.

Away from the above, the study observed that the paved roads that have been constructed in Park to support the Tilenga oil project activities have opened it up to more motorised traffic exposing wildlife to poaching, accidents as well as noise and air pollution.

Furthermore, Well-pads are located an estimated 950 and 750 metres respectively from the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Ramsar Site in Park which is an Important Birding Area and important spawning ground for the Lake Albert fisheries.

“The development of good pads near the Ramsar site has been implicated in risking the conservation of aquatic biodiversity such as water birds especially the vulnerable Shoebill, fishes, and mammals like the hippopotamus” the study mentioned.

Additionally, the development of well pads and other oil sector infrastructure were also implicated in increasing the human population in Park. “The presence of human beings has been shown to lead to avoidance by wildlife, especially larger mammalian predators, of areas where human beings are. Wildlife such as the Uganda Kob was said to be slowly acclimatizing to the human presence and can be found near oil sector workers”. The study revealed.

Also, it pins oil activities in the Northern sector of the Park where the rig that will drill the Jobiri wells is located, the Northern side is characterized by savanna vegetation hosting more wildlife than the Southern sector, endangering the conservation of the savanna grasslands. According to experts in the study, predators such as lions, hyenas, leopards, and others also prefer to live in the Northern sector of the Park where they can easily access prey among others.

This study was released barely a few weeks after a group of 828 civil society organizations (CSOs) led by Afiego, oil host communities, fisherfolk, small-scale farmers as well as tour and travel operators, and other individuals from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) petitioned President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to stop the ongoing TotalEnergies’ oil drilling in Murchison Falls National Park and its planned deployment of a second oil rig in the Park.

The petition followed reports that Total Energies E&P (U) B.V. was sweet-talking the President to allow them to deploy the second rig in the Park following the Petroleum Authority of Uganda’s (PAU) refusal, to allow them to deploy another oil rig in the Park over biodiversity conservation concerns.

As Total looks to add more oil rigs escalating the impacts, the recent study reveals that its current infrastructural projects—including oil rigs, well pads, pipelines, and roads—continue to cause negative impacts on biodiversity conservation in the Park.

In a bid to strengthen biodiversity conservation, the research study recommends that TotalEnergies and the Ugandan government stop all oil exploitation activities in the Park and calls for the intervention of the United Nations (UN), Ramsar secretariat, and UNESCO World Heritage Committee to engage the Ugandan government to stop the oil activities in Park.

Furthermore, the Ugandan government and development partners called upon to support the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in addressing risks such as climate change, poaching, and human-wildlife conflicts that are endangering the conservation of vital wildlife that supports the multi-billion tourism and other industries in Uganda.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority refused to comment on the study findings. The spokesperson of the Authority Mr. Bashir Hangi in an interview with Witness Radio said he was unable to comment on its contents.

“We haven’t read the detailed report and cannot comment on its contents. Allow us to read the report,” he wrote in a WhatsApp text message to Witness Radio.

Dr. Patricia Litho Kevin, the Assistant Commissioner for Communication in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, acknowledged that there are potential risks associated with oil exploration and production, a reason why they established robust regulations, monitoring mechanisms, and contingency plans to prevent and respond to any environmental incidents.

She adds that the Government of Uganda is committed to ensuring that the oil projects are executed in an environmentally sustainable and responsible manner because it also understands the importance of preserving the natural heritage and biodiversity.

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

A Financial gap: Can China be stopped from financing the EACOP?

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio and Südnordfunk team.

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) faces a financial hole. Numerous Western banks and insurers have already bailed out – meanwhile, the pipeline construction is in full swing. The shareholders seem confident that they will be able to finance the project. And Chinese banks, in particular, are coming into play.

Witness Radio’s Partner, Südnordfunk, a community radio in Germany, speaks to Zaki Mamdoo of the StopEACOP Movement and Ryan Brightwell of BankTrack about the reasons for the delay and the question of how China can be stopped from funding this disastrous project during the -Project is no longer attractive. China intends to close EACOP’s financial gap program.

The program was first broadcast in Germany, and Witness Radio is bringing you the same program in the English version.

Südnordfunk is partnering with Witness Radio to shed light on the different ways the construction of the EACOP pipeline is and will be affecting people, the resettlement programs, evictions, the socio-ecological consequences, and the entanglements of European politics.

Tune in. In case you missed both live programs (English and German broadcasts).

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

NEMA suspend operations to evict the World Bank project-affected community and other residents accused of being located in wetlands.

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio team

The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has halted all evictions in the Kawaala Zone II and Nabweru villages until community petitions protesting against the evictions are heard. Witness Radio has learned.

This decision to halt the evictions followed several petitions by hundreds of residents affected by the Lubigi wetland restoration exercise. In June, the residents from the two villages petitioned NEMA, seeking a review of the eviction orders issued by evictors and compensation for those whose properties got demolished.

Some of the petitioners are waiting to receive compensation after signing a remedy agreement from a mediation process facilitated by the World Bank’s Dispute Resolution Services (DRS).

In one of their petitions, the World Bank project affected community accused NEMA of hiding behind the Lubigi restoration exercise to deny them compensation for their land which was earmarked for Lubigi drainage expansion, that they had been waiting for over a year.

Since June 2024, many residents in Kawaala Zone II, Nansana, Nabweru, and other villages have forcefully been evicted from their land, while others have faced eviction threats from NEMA claiming these residents encroached on Lubigi wetland.

However, victims have contested NEMA claims, asserting that they have not infringed on wetlands. Some residents claim to have land ownership titles issued by the government of Uganda, while others are tenants of the Buganda Land Board from whom they have been paying ground rent. It is on these grounds that they petitioned the NEMA.

Addressing the affected residents, their lawyers, and village leaders at NEMA offices in Kampala, Dr. Akankwasah Barirenga, the Executive Director of NEMA, confirmed that NEMA was in receipt of several partitions and stated that the authority will hear all communities’ petitions. He further emphasized that no one should be evicted or disturbed from their land until all petitions are heard.

According to NEMA, it has received 137 petitions, and a final decision on whether to evict or not will be made upon completion of hearings.

“No one is going to evict you from your homes before the completion of the hearing of your petitions. After hearing these petitions, you will be informed of the decisions. If it is established that the petitions have substance, the tribunal will decide based on what has been heard,” Dr. Akankwasah revealed