Uganda: Investment - MPs split on land donations

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"The issue of land grabbing is becoming too much. In Hoima most communal land has been fenced and titles given to people we don't know. I will stand to defend my people in parliament," MP Kaahwa Tophace Byagira (pictured left) said.
New Vision | 31 July 2012

Uganda: Investment - MPs split on land donations

By Patrick Jaramogi

Government has been asked to make the process of acquiring land for investments more transparent.

The call was made by Members of Parliament during a civil society meeting on land grabbing held in Kampala. Opposition MPs disagreed with NRM MPs on the issue of awarding of land to investors. Mugume Roland Kaginda (FDC) Rukungiri municipality said government was displacing people by awarding land to investors.

"We need to go slow on land allocation. Investors should not be given land at the expense of locals. Transparency must prevail in land donations," he said.

Kaginda said a resettlement policy that addresses compensation those displaced should be put in place.

Kaahwa Tophace Byagira (Hoima) said they would defend the displaced in parliament. "The issue of land grabbing is becoming too much. In Hoima most communal land has been fenced and titles given to people we don't know. I will stand to defend my people in parliament," she said.

Kamwenge Woman MP Dorothy Kabaraitsya said a number of people in Kamwenge were facing eviction. "We are not against investments, but we are against displacing our people," she said.

She urged the consortium of civil society organizations spearheaded by the Food Rights Alliance (FRA) to mobilise the displaced people to petition parliament.

On April 26, FRA launched a national campaign against land grabbing in Uganda in which several actors including church leaders, politicians and students condemned the act of land grabbing and its attendant impacts.
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