While speaking during a courtesy call on the Minister of Transport recently, the new European Union Head of Delegation to Uganda, Ambassador Attilio Pacifici, said he was “irritated to hear that the Northern Bypass is delaying to be completed because of land compensation, thereby doubling the cost of the project”.
He also hailed President Museveni’s countrywide tour, sensitising
people on government’s proposed Bill on compulsory land acquisition.
Ambassador Pacifici is right to be irritated and so are Ugandans, who have been irritated and flabbergasted for years, living with incompleted roads, railways and other infrastructural projects, and by the cost overruns on this projects. The reasons for this state of affairs is a mountainful and land acquisition and greed or stubbornness of land owners is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Uganda Constitution already adequately spells out how land can be forcefully acquired by government, but only after prompt and commensurate compensation of the land owners. The land owner is thus entitled to be paid a market price before he/she parts with the land and this must be done promptly. What the Constitution does not provide for and what government wants to introduce through a constitutional amendment, is for government to have a free hand to compulsorily take land from land owners, pay a price it (government) deems adequate and if the owner objects, deposit the said money with courts. Government then takes ownerhip of the land, while the owner is left to haggle it out with some bureaucrats in government. The process could take up to 10 years if not more, as some domestic arrears have remained unpaid for that long, in spite of the fact that there was no dispute on price between government and the provider of goods or services, land inclusive.
President Museveni said years ago that he cannot sell his cows to government unless he is paid in advance. If he was a businessman, he added, he would avoid doing business with government departments and wondered if those doing so are motivated by the ‘inflated pricing’ they negotiated with corrupt government officials.
There is something else which the EU Ambassador should appreciate.
Ambassador Pacifici is right to be irritated and so are Ugandans, who have been irritated and flabbergasted for years, living with incompleted roads, railways and other infrastructural projects, and by the cost overruns on this projects. The reasons for this state of affairs is a mountainful and land acquisition and greed or stubbornness of land owners is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Uganda Constitution already adequately spells out how land can be forcefully acquired by government, but only after prompt and commensurate compensation of the land owners. The land owner is thus entitled to be paid a market price before he/she parts with the land and this must be done promptly. What the Constitution does not provide for and what government wants to introduce through a constitutional amendment, is for government to have a free hand to compulsorily take land from land owners, pay a price it (government) deems adequate and if the owner objects, deposit the said money with courts. Government then takes ownerhip of the land, while the owner is left to haggle it out with some bureaucrats in government. The process could take up to 10 years if not more, as some domestic arrears have remained unpaid for that long, in spite of the fact that there was no dispute on price between government and the provider of goods or services, land inclusive.
President Museveni said years ago that he cannot sell his cows to government unless he is paid in advance. If he was a businessman, he added, he would avoid doing business with government departments and wondered if those doing so are motivated by the ‘inflated pricing’ they negotiated with corrupt government officials.
There is something else which the EU Ambassador should appreciate.
Information
on government projects, which are in the pipeline eg roads, railways,
dams, refineries, etc, is leaked by government officials to well
connected people, who then proceed to map out the areas where these
projects will pass or be located and pressure peasants in the area to
sell using force if necessary (which is readily available to them). It
is these greedy, selfish and well connected fellows who have contributed
to the escalating cost of infrastructural projects like the Northern
Bypass, started around 2004 and still incomplete by 2017.
Project delays are also occasioned by the process of procuring contractors.
Project delays are also occasioned by the process of procuring contractors.
There are numerous cases where the government has had to terminate
contractors who have demonstrated incompetence, raising doubts on how
they actually ended up being selected. Stories are abound of government
officials seeking bribes and handing over projects to contractors
promising the highest ‘kickbacks’.
There have also
been cases of ‘phantom’ companies getting contracts - like Eutaw - which
was contracted to do the Mukono - Katosi toad. Back to land, the
Justice Catherine Bamugemereire Commission has exposed a lot of rot and
filth regarding land grabbing and people behind it.The country is shocked that the people involved in grabbing are the very people entrusted to protect the interests of the population - ministry of Land, police, army, district land boards, RDCs, Nema, National Forestry Authority, etc. Land titles have been issued in wetlands and even lakes and rivers!
Thousands of peasants have been mercilessly evicted from lands of their ancestors with nowhere else to go. The land problem is thus already a big mess and compulsory acquisition by government will only aggravate the situation and may result in confiscation of land from natives under the guise of “acquisition for government projects”. The government should, as shown by Justice Bamugemereire Commission, turn its guns on the existing mess and protect the interests of the p