KYOTERA-UGANDA/NEWSDAY: Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja has clarified that it is only those people who had settled in Sango Bay 12 years before the promulgation of the 1995 Constitution who will be compensated.
“There are people who heard that the government was intending to put a project at Sango Bay and they rushed to get land there. We shall not compensate these. It is only what is regarded as the bonafide occupants by the Constitution who will be paid,” Nabbanja was quoted on CBS 88.8 news on Friday.
She explained that she spent the greater part of Thursday touring Sango Bay by plane and what she saw were people cutting trees and grazing cattle.
In a cabinet meeting on Wednesday President Yoweri Museveni directed Nabbanja to go to Sango Bay to expedite the removal of occupants of the former sugar estate which was allocated to BIDCO for the growing of oil palm.
“Yes the President directed me to see that the occupants on the Sango Bay land leave so that it is used to grow oil palm as those being grown in Kalangala are not enough to alleviate the increasing prices of soap and cooking oil,” Nabbanja was quoted as said.
The government had given the occupants a one-month ultimatum to vacate the land that formally belonged to Sango-Bay Sugar Estates Limited, to pave way for the expansion of the National Oil Palm Project-NOPP which is implemented under the Ministry of Agriculture.
However, the current occupants in a meeting with Hajj Moses Ddumba, the Kyotera Resident District Commissioner in October 2021 vowed never to vacate the land, arguing that they became bonafide tenants whose interests of ownership are protected under the law.
The disputed land reverted to the government in 1972 following the expulsion of the Asians by President Idi Amin Dada but people have since occupied part of it and established permanent settlements.
The land measuring 247 square miles is located in the areas of Kanamiti, Matengeeto, Mutukula, Lukulavu, Lukoma, and Kabale villages in Kakuuto sub-county, and in Kabira, Kasasa, and Kyebe sub-counties in Kyotera district. Sam Mayanja, the State Minister for Lands had given January as the official deadline for the registration exercise and boundary opening of the land. However, it was extended up to the end of February; however, it was also not met.
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