By Joy Nabulo
Last week, during a media briefing on the status of the oil and gas sector, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Hon. Ruth Nankabirwa reiterated the ambition to commence production by 2025. As these plans were disseminated across various media platforms, several communities displaced by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) continued to express concerns regarding the compensation packages received by some individuals.
Project land acquisition efforts have already led to the displacement of thousands of people from their land across the several districts crossed by EACOP in Uganda and Tanzania.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project is a pipeline that will transport oil produced from Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania.
The compulsory acquisition of land, displacement, and resettlement of people has been done through both cash and in-kind compensations though with others still waiting for their compensation to date while the PAPs were allowed to decide whether to take cash or compensation in-kind with assurances given to them that the package would be fair in whichever way they decided.
Compensation in-kind included land title and a new house with solar power, a kitchen with a chimney, a water harvester tank that holds 1,000 litres and a ventilated pit latrine.
The fundamental purpose of this was to ensure a better way of life for the people affected by the oil and gas projects; A better life than the one they had before the projects commenced but unfortunately, that target has not been achieved even as government thumbs their chest in celebration.
This comes in after un-ending pleas for help by the communities who were given houses as compensation which remain in dire state especially the solar panels, the size of the house and failure to be built per their cultural values and customs but even still household solar panels are in dire states posing them to dangers of darkness.
According to communities in Kikuube, Kyotera, rakai and Lwengo these solar systems seem to be substandard and do not provide enough light or the entire night and sometimes appear to be on prepaid system that they are on and off and they have to make several calls in order to get them to be re-activated something that these people can’t continue dealing with since it involves incurring costs of airtime and perhaps some of them can’t afford it neither do they own phones. Hence calling for help from responsible authorities.
And without action over this issue, people will be exposed to dangers of darkness like theft physical injuries, sight issues and for those who can afford other light options might opt for open flames like candles and kerosene lamps which are all polluting alternatives just to escape darkness and by so doing they will be consuming bad flames from candles and burning oil in their own houses using kerosene. This will affect their health so much and also pollute the environment due to the burning flames in the houses that have been described as modern villages and this is the kind of development that doesn’t respond to the needs of the people.
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