Tabu Butagira
5 May 2008
Kampala — The campaign to halt the proposed giveaway of part of Mabira forest to an investor who will pick $500 million in timber sales and then plant sugar cane, got a boost on Friday with members of Parliament pressing the government to leave the natural woodlot intact.
Speaking after a tour of the vast thick forest that provides water shade for Lake Victoria, MPs on the Natural Resources committee said the Mehta family, owners of Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited Company that is seeking to cut the trees and plant sugarcane on the land, had better look elsewhere.
"As we moved around (touring the forest) and brainstormed, we were of the view that the government should explore other ways of increasing sugarcane production in the country without undermining the integrity of Mabira forest, given its value to the current and future generations," Mr Emmanuel Dombo, the committee chairperson, said.
Protagonists say Mabira forest acts as environmental filter zone for noxious gases, buffers against soil erosion, plays habitat to myriad endangered animal and flora species and holds a variety of trees with high medicinal worth and hardwood timber worth hundreds of millions of dollars besides its aesthetic value.
MP Dombo (NRM, Bunyole) said their opposition to the doling out of Mabira land was further informed by the rapid regeneration of the forest's previously destroyed sections.
"As the East African regional bloc expands, we also want the government to evaluate whether Uganda will specialise in sugar production or select enterprises where we have comparative advantage, unlike sugar manufacturing," he said. But the government on Saturday swiftly dismissed the lawmakers' recommendations as "rushed and inconsequential".
"It (MPs recommendation) is premature; they can form their opinion but the final position will be taken only after a cabinet paper [on the proposed forest giveaway] is presented and debated by the whole house [Parliament]," Ms Jessica Eriyo, the State minister for environment said in a separate interview.
The minister accompanied the MPs on the tour of Mabira forest on Friday. It has emerged that leaders of Mukono district local government have mobilised residents willing to offer about 30, 000 hectares of land and farm on it as out growers to increase sugarcane production for Scoul.
This option is probably one of the highlights of a parallel report that Micro-finance State Minister Salim Saleh submitted to Cabinet following independent studies on how to integrate sugarcane plantation under the mainstream Prosperity-for-All programme.
Gen. Saleh reportedly wants individual farmers who have at least four acres of land within vicinity of existing sugarcane plantations to be sourced as outgrowers. This arrangement, to him, would bring extra earnings to the farmers in line with the spirit of the Prosperity for All programme.
Daily Monitor has learnt that Cabinet is currently discussing the Gen. Saleh findings alongside the main findings of the ad hoc cabinet committee headed by the Ministry of Environment.
But the date for a final government decision is still uncertain reportedly due to divergent internal views on a variety of alternative solutions suggested by members.
In the run up to the November 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Kampala, Finance Minister Ezra Suruma had unequivocally told a meeting of Chogm finance ministers in South America that the Uganda government had dropped the proposal to swap part of Mabira forest with sugarcane plantation.
President Museveni later resurrected the acrimonious debate over the forest giveaway and stirred public controversy by declaring that the Mabira issue, which caused bloody riots in Kampala early last year, was still under consideration.
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