The government through the Attorney General sued the Project Affected Persons, accusing them of declining to receive the compensation fees allocated to them during the property evaluation process, which threatens the implementation of the pipeline project.
80 people in different
parts of Lwengo, Kyotera and Rakai districts have been dragged to court for rejecting
compensation fees for their pieces of land laying within the demarcated route
of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline-EACOP project.
The government through the Attorney
General sued the Project Affected Persons, accusing them of declining to receive
the compensation fees allocated to them during the property evaluation process,
which threatens the implementation of the pipeline project.
The government through Imelda
Adong, a Senior State Attorney has filed an application to Masaka High Court seeking to compulsorily acquire the land from the project to progress, pending determination
of the disputes with the victims.
Adong indicates
that the victims who are classified as registered administrators of 41 estates
were collectively allocated 701 million Shillings as compensation fees, which
they however rejected claiming it is insufficient.
She says that despite the repeated pleas
and attempts of negotiations, the PAPs have reluctantly refused to vacate the pipeline
route, hence frustrating project implementation activities.
The government is now asking for court orders granting vacant possession of the affected persons' land so that it can be used by
EACOP project activities, permission to deposit the affected person’s
compensation in court, and eviction and demolition orders against the affected
persons.
The application also asks the court to
order the landowners to meet the litigation costs as well as discharge the government of any liability arising from any claims resulting from the
sought orders.
However, the Project-Affected Persons
through their lawyer Peter Alinaitwe contend that the government intends to forcibly
deprive them of their inherent rights to owning properties, arguing they were
allocated unfair compensation awards.
Alinaitwe indicates that affected persons disputed the government’s compensation figures that allocated
them peanuts, compared to the value of the properties that will be lost to
the project.
He alleges that the contractor who
was hired to evaluate the project-affected persons made several omissions that
left behind so many grievances that have remained unresolved for over three years
now.
Besides filing their defence, he has urged to
government to consider a harmonious settlement of the apparent dispute with the
victims rather than subjecting them to a litigation process, which will instead
stress them further.
Masaka High Court
Registrar Roy Kalungi has fixed Monday 16th September, as the
hearing date for the application.
Cosma
Yiga, one of the indifferent PAPs accuses the government of favouring the interests of the oil company at the expense of the nationals, arguing that they are still
grieved with the little money allocated to them.
Yiga,
who according to the project design will lose about 2.7 acres of land planted
with coffee, banana, and coffee plantations, dozens of mangoes, and jackfruit
trees was allocated a compensation of 43.6 million shillings, a figure which he
says is too little compare to the value of the property.
He alleges
that although some Project-Affected Persons signed consent forms to give out
the land, the majority are dissatisfied with rates and are struggling to
rebuild their livelihoods.
The government and partners are undertaking to
construct a 30-meter-wide and 1,443-kilometer-long pipeline which will
transport Uganda’s crude oil from Hoima to the Chongoleani peninsular in
Tanzania for export to the international market.
