By Mulengera Reporters
Gen Salim Saleh has directly intervened in the brewing political chaos in the island district of Buvuma through dispatching Counsel Sylvia Ntambi Muhebwa, an influential Assistant based at his Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) tactical headquarters in Nakaseke.
For weeks, political uncertainty has been brewing in Buvuma after local residents vowed to make their stalled compensation claim, in existence since the year 2014, a campaign issue over which the disgruntled women and youths have continuously been mobilized to once again vote against Gen YK Museveni, the way they did in 2021.
Now area MP Robert Migadde Ndugwa, one of the few Movement legislators who survived the Kyagulanyi wave in 2021 and currently heads “Buganda on Museveni’ pressure group (which is spearheading the incumbent’s reelection in Buganda), is fearful that the NUP Presidential Candidate Bobi Wine is most likely going to once again win Buvuma because of compensation-related grievances.
THE GENESIS:
The brief background to all this is that in the year 2014 (11 years ago), the district leadership was tasked by the central government to engage bibanja owners cajoling them to abdicate their land to facilitate the establishment of the palm oil growing project on the island district. This was to enable BIDCO, a foreign investor, to engage in sustainable manufacturing of soap for both the local and export market. It was a controversial matter over which Gen Museveni’s political opponents denounced NRM.
Gradually, local residents accepted to surrender their land/bibanja, in thousands of acres, to enable palm oil growing, which the Museveni government implemented through a project called “Oil Palm Project” under the Ministry of Agriculture. It was a PPP between the GoU and the BIDCO investor. The GoU’s role was to avail land for large scale palm oil growing as the investor implemented the rest.
Area MP Migadde, who for years has been discussing the related grievances with Gen Museveni his NRM party boss, says that more than 7,000 residents were affected by this loss of land on Buvuma island. They were supposed to be compensated money after their respective claims being carefully verified and authenticated by a committee comprising of officials from the Ministries of Lands, Finance and Agriculture.
Since the year 2014, when the whole compensation thing started, thousands have remained uncompensated yet their land was long taken, leaving many of them homeless and unable to resettle. A few who were compensated were underpaid after their land acreage was curiously reduced and under reported. Non-islanders ended up having their names of the PAPs list and much of the compensation cash was paid to them, to the exclusion of genuine PAPs. Several residents say they were registered for 1.5 acres and compensated for that, yet in actual sense their kibanja was as big as 5-8 acres.
The resultant grievances have been boiling up for the last 11 years and this, coupled with army operations against inappropriate fishing methods on the lake, explain why the 40,000 Buvuma voters revolted and voted against Gen Museveni and other NRM candidates in January 2021. Migadde is fearful that even when the army lake operations were recently halted, Museveni’s vote victory during the 15th January polling in Buvuma remains doubtable because of the profound grievances area residents continue to have over the bungled up compensation exercise.
The LC5 Chairman Adrian Ddungu Wasswa, who read the writing on the wall and didn’t even bother seeking re-election, agrees with Migadde’s diagnosis of the political problem and wants the President (who will be campaigning on the island on Saturday 3rd Jan) to order Bank of Uganda bullion vans to just deliver the cash to Buvuma and pay off the outstanding compensation claims, or else there is no hope for the NRM to overcome the impending second NUP wave in Buvuma come 15th January.
THE COURT CASE:
Having waited for the compensation in vain, more than 400 affected residents dragged government to Court, a matter whose details President Museveni first learnt about last June during his PDM tour of Buvuma. He persuaded the petitioners to withdraw their court case, abandon their original claim of Shs101bn and accept Shs28bn which he assured them would be paid in just weeks, through a supplementary budget.
Available correspondences show that the Finance Ministry PSST Ramathan Goobi acted very quickly and passed on Shs14bn out of the Shs28bn, promising the balance later. However, the Agriculture Ministry to which the Shs14bn was released for onward forwarding to the Buvuma PAPs never promptly acted as instructed. This is something Gen Museveni discovered recently through a whistle blower. Naturally, State House was concerned that this delay in passing on the money was going to complicate efforts for Museveni to reclaim Buvuma.
Museveni unleashed his Special Assistant Counsel Rebecca Atwine to closely work with Lands Minister Sam Mayanja to quickly fix the problem. But still the compensation cash hasn’t yet been delivered yet Buvuma residents were recently made to become excited about the possibility of a great Christmas bonanza when they were asked to open new bank accounts (after banks closed the old ones on the account of being dormant) only to end up being disappointed.
Account-opening is a big problem for these islanders because Buvuma doesn’t have a bank. One has to travel over 50kms either to Jinja or Mukono. This is what hundreds of the residents did upon being assured money would be in the next day to enable them have memorable Christmas. Now weeks later, there is still no money. This has fermented even deeper anti-Museveni sentiments, leaving area MP Migadde with no option but to conclude that Kyagulanyi might once again sweep the Buvuma vote.
During a locus visit on Tuesday, which culminated into a Baraza meeting, Minister Sam Mayanja called on Buvuma residents to get angry and join him in pressurizing the Agricultural Ministry technocrats to explain why the Shs28bbn which the President promised and directed to be earmarked hasn’t reached them as yet.
Mayanja recommended that the top technocrats at MAAIF get sanctioned for dragging their feet on the President’s directive even when it’s clear that messing up with the same could politically cost the big man from Rwakitura. Mayanja hastily convened the Tuesday Baraza expecting that the top technocrats from the Agricultural Ministry would be present to explain to the angry crowds but this never happened.
GEN SALEH SWINGS:
It’s against this background that Gen Salim Saleh, the President’s brother (who some call co-President), has opted to get involved although it’s doubtable if there will be enough time to woo back voters from Kyagulanyi. Many of them (especially youths and women) seem to have permanently divorced the NRM, ostensibly for taking them for granted.
A team led by senior lawyer Sylvia Ntambi Muhebwa, who works as one of his assistants at OWC, has been dispatched to rush to Buvuma and engage in quick fact-finding which can guide Gen Salim Saleh’s intervention, aimed at bringing the area residents’ compensation-related grievances to an end once and for all.
Muhebwa says they are supposed to continue engaging with the affected residents and other stakeholders, including decision makers at the concerned Ministries, after which they will compile a report, comprehensively advising on what must be done to urgently atone the injustice the Buvuma islanders have endured since the year 2014 when they first lost their land and their bibanjas to pave way for the BIDCO project.
As all these interventions are being made, it remains doubtable whether this coming in of Gen Salim Saleh isn’t going to prove to be too late, long after the Buvuma political train left the station.
The affected residents have simply endured too much destitution and material deprivation in the last 14 years and they badly want to see Gen Museveni, their country’s President, crack the whip real hard on the individual public officials who are responsible for their torment which has been ongoing since the year 2014.
Should he once again lose Buvuma come the 15th January vote to Bobi Wine, it’s very likely that Gen Museveni will be looking for people to hang inside his government. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
