By Mulengera Reporters
Last week, New Vision carried a story about soldiers raiding the GoU’s Njeru Stock Farm in Buikwe district in broad-day light and forcefully taking away 250 head of cattle valued at Shs3bn. The story indicated that this was in relation to the dispute over part of the land on which the stock farm has been operating and sitting since the 1940s.
On one hand is the Ham Mukasa family which claims ownership of the same land too, besides a one Christopher Lule from whom Minister Kahinda Otafiire is understood to have obtained up to 100 acres and become owner of the same effective August 2014.
The Njeru Stock Farm Manager Carolyne Wabule, who is an employee of Rwamirama’s Ministry, says that they have always been attacked and intimidated by armed men who sometimes come around to assault them and destroy property including the government cattle. The same armed men have sometimes locked her up at the Police Station for days.
The New Vision story claimed that Otafiire never provided any consideration for 100 acres beyond merely aiding Lule to get his land title using a directive that is supposed to have resulted from a Court ruling rendered by Justice Opio Ruby Aweri that never was. That Aweri never had that same case for him to have issued an order!
The New Vision journalists quoted Lt Col Bright Rwamirama, the Livestock Minister, as trashing Otafiire’s claim to own any land in the area. Rwamirama provided lots of historical facts to contradict Otafiire’s supposed ownership.
In response to the screaming New Vision block buster headline the following day, CBS’s Alex Nsubuga Katabalwa arranged a crossfire interview of some sort between Rwamirama and Senior Kahinda Otafiire. In the interview, aired on CBS, Rwamirama was guarded and cautious in his answers unlike Otafiire who was explosive and put off his gloves to totally dismiss Rwamirama.
The NRA bush war General asserted that the whole thing had been exaggerated to help coverup the ineptness at Rwamirama’s Ministry. He said the men who came to take away the cows were acting legally and on behalf of the Ham Mukasa family whose land the Stock Farm has been using for more than 15 years without paying them any compensation.
Otafiire said that Rwamirama, who he described as unfit to effectively run the livestock Ministry, had a lot to explain himself about including the circumstances under which the Ham Mukasa family has been failing to get their money for the last 15 years yet the same has always been budgeted for and expended for and on behalf of the GoU.
He said Rwamirama should spend time reorganizing his docket rather than bad mouthing him in New Vision interviews. Otafiire asserted that the whole thing had been trivialized and deliberately dramatized in order to enable the livestock Minister to cover up his personal failings as the sector political leader yet he is an innocent man with totally nothing to do with the chaos in the livestock sector. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
