Businessman Jailed For 12 Months For Stealing Timber From Mabira Forest

Businessman Jailed For 12 Months For Stealing Timber From Mabira Forest

By Angel Lubowa

MAKINDYE

Sembwa had made it a routine to illegally cut logs from Mabira Forest and played games until when it has dawned on him.

COURT in Makindye has sent a city businessman in jail for 12 months after finding him guilty of felling trees illegally from Mabira Forest along Kampala_ Jinja road.

Robinson Sembwa was
convicted by the Makindye Chief Magistrate’s Court to 12 months imprisonment for Illegal Possession of Forest Produce.

Sembwa was arrested by the State House Anti Corruption Unit working together with Uganda police and the office of the DPP after he was proving almost impossible.
On arrest he was found in possession of over 200 pieces of timber cut from Mabira forest.

According to court documents,
Sembwa is a notorious illegal logger who has repeatedly been arrested, charged over the same but had never been convicted till when court finally convicted him.

Before conviction, he had been arrested several times and at one point last year he was arraigned before the Buganda Road Chief Magistrates Court on charges of Illegal Possession of Forest Produce.

He is said to have multiple stores in areas of Mabira where he hides his trade.

Some of the alleged timber was recovered from his stores near the forest in Najjembe division, Lugazi Municipality.

The State House Anti corruption unit
commenced investigations into the illegal destruction of Mabira Forest following a directive from H.E the President, to stop the illegal activities in Mabira Forest.

The President has always been vocal against this vice and on one occasion, he said “whoever destroys forests is an enemy of the country because forests, work as a system and when one part of the system is tampered with, the entire system is affected.”

It is estimated that over 500,000 acres of forests are cut annually throughout Uganda, this is equivalent to deforesting 43 football fields every hour.

In 2021, Uganda lost 49,000 hectares of tree cover, equivalent to 23.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

Investigations which are still ongoing have so far revealed a number of illegal activities; encroachment for agriculture, logging, charcoal burning and creation of titles on forest land.