Officials from Buganda Kingdom have expressed concern over the human rights violations experienced by persons affected by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project and have pledged to conduct site visits to the affected areas.
The pledge came after a delegation of 14 EACOP-affected people from Lwengo, Kyotera and Rakai districts visited the kingdom officials at Bulange-Mengo in Kampala, Uganda on March 18.
The affected people were received by Noah Kiyimba, the minister for Cabinet Affairs at Mengo.
Wilberforce Ssebuliba and Gonzaga Kyakulumbye, the chairperson and secretary general of Association of Greater Masaka EACOP PAPs Petitioners (AGMEPP) respectively, spoke on behalf of the affected people during the meeting.
The AGMEPP leaders listed some of the challenges they have encountered such as: undervaluation of property, including land and crops; use of cut-off dates through which the EACOP project developers put land use restrictions on the affected people’s property and coercion of EACOP-affected people into signing compensation agreements that they did not fully understand.
Other concerns were: payment of delayed and inadequate compensation to EACOP-affected people by the EACOP company; filing of court cases by government against EACOP-affected households that rejected low compensation and eviction of some affected people from their property before compensation.
Kiyimba said while the government is keen on oil exploitation, the rights of landowners and their families must be respected.
He promised to share the PAPs’ concerns with Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga and noted that the kingdom would conduct an investigation into the reported grievances.
He further pledged that Buganda Kingdom officials would visit the affected areas to assess the situation and engage with the PAPs for possible solutions.
Following the meeting, the affected people expressed hope that their engagement with Buganda Kingdom would result in the solving of their grievances.
Kyakulumbye said: “We visited Buganda Kingdom because we want the kingdom officials to conduct site visits, so that they can see how the project has negatively impacted us. We hope that we can work together to find lasting solutions to our challenges.”
