By URN
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.
