Twenty-one households that will be physically displaced by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Rakai and Kyotera Districts are dissatisfied with the valuation figures given to them during the disclosure exercise.
The EACOP Project implementers conducted the exercise in June and now move to secure land in Rakai and Kyotera where it will affect 760 people in the two districts.
Ms Sulaina Nambabali, a project affected person in Rakai is disappointed that she may not realise her expectation of livelihood improvement using compensation funds from the EACOP project after her 0.94 acres of land affected by the pipeline was valuated less than Shs50m; a figure she hoped to get from it as indicated in the valuation report released during the disclosure exercise.
Ms Nambabali who is a tenant on a private mailo land for which she pays Shs12,000 annual nominal ground rent to the landlord argues that she would still make reasonable earning if she parcelled the portion into plots for sale to private individuals than forfeiting it to the EACOP project where she attracts meagre returns.
The resident has sugarcane gardens and two fishpond dug about six metres away from the demarcated pipeline route that will be cleared.
However, these were not listed for compensation even when in her assumption they will be affected since the water flows into her ponds will interfere with her work as the pipeline infrastructure is laid.
Mr Joseph Zabasajja, a resident of Lusese village in Nabigasa sub-county, Kyotera district is also one of the affected persons that have come out to dispute the compensation figures even after signing consent forms that were presented to them by the valuation teams.
His residential house will be demolished and his modest banana and coffee plantations cleared to open the route for the pipeline.
According to the project’s approved Resettlement Action Plan, Mr Zabasajja qualified for monetary compensation for land and other properties lost as well as getting a new house in which his family will be resettled. The compensation schedule indicates that Mr Zabasajja is eligible to get Shs80.9m and a four-bedroom house to be constructed by the compensating agency.
However he is unhappy with the compensation entitlements arguing that they are inadequate to enable his family to regain their full life upon relocation.
“What I’m getting in return cannot put us back to the life we are in currently. Much as I appended a signature on compensation forms, it was not done out of will but because of lack of choices,” he says.
Mr Zabasajja adds that his properties are worth Shs350m having had a six-room house and a coffee and banana gardens sitting on 1.6 acres of land that have sustained his family for decades.
“Losing all this life in exchange for entitlements that were allocated from the project is illogical”.
Mr Abby Kavuma, a resident of Kituntu village in Lwanda sub-county, Rakai district is also losing two acres of land to the EACOP project at a compensation cost of Shs21m. His land had banana and coffee gardens, part of it was used for grazing while a small plot of it was being used for subsistence farming.
He also disputes the compensation rates that were used to define the value of their properties saying they are not proportionate compared to the accumulating land prices in the area.
Mr Kavuma argues that with such a little sum of money, he can hardly obtain a similar piece of land in Rakai district.
But Ms Angela Nalwanga, the Head of Stakeholders Management and Social Affairs at the EACOP project, partly attributes the underlying frustrations to land tenure systems in which many aggrieved Project Affected Persons (PAPs) are covered.
She explains that in many parts of the central region, the majority of the project affected persons-PAPs are occupants of Mailo land where ownership rights are shared between the landlord and occupants, which also leads to sharing of compensation entitlements in percentages of 40 to 60 respectively.
Ms Nalwanga adds that their field teams explained all the modalities to the PAPs during their engagement meetings, advising those who are still unsatisfied with the process to forward their complaints to the project Grievance Management Committees established in their areas for possible review.
The Kyotera District Chairman, Patrick Kintu Kusekkulo, says the authorities have notified the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development about people’s frustration about the project.
He says there is need for reassessment of the valuation rates in the area warning that the project stands to lose social contract should such grievances remain unattended before actual implementation.
Mr Yisito Kayinga Muddu, the programmes coordinator of Community Transformation Foundation Network (COFTONE); a member of Civil Society Coalition on Oil and Gas reveals that their monitoring teams have so far registered 98 people with grievances about the project.
He says that they are currently working on modalities of securing for them legal representation to have their concerns argued before courts of law.
