4 October 2008
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It always begins as a rumour that is strenuously denied. This is followed by vague and ambiguous half- hearted confirmations.
Before you know it, there is heavy construction equipment on the site as yet another piece of prime real estate is gobbled up by foreigners in the name of foreign investment, often in total disregard of environment protection laws.
At least two world-class hotels and a mega shopping and amusement complex in the Kampala area are built on the city's green belt and wetland respectively. The country's leading urban planner of the period, Engineer Okullo Epak (RIP), waged endless battles in and outside Parliament to save some of the city's green spaces, to no avail.
Now comes the rumour attributed to no less a person than the Agriculture Minister of Egypt, one Amin Abaza, that Uganda has given his country "more than two million acres of fertile land to grow wheat and corn".
The Minister of Lands, the Hon. Daniel Omara Atubo, says he is unaware of the proposed give-away. Two million acres of land is serious real estate in any language. If one square mile is constituted by 640 acres, 2 million acres translates into 3,125 Sq miles, i.e more than one-third of Buganda's now legendary Mailo Akenda (9,000 Sq miles)!
If we follow Temangalonomics, the most current brand of land economics also known as Jamwamamasurumanomics where an acre of marshland goes for a mind-blowing Shs24m, then we are talking of Shs48,000,000,000,000 only, or Shs48 trillion, if we follow the American trillion!
Fellow citizens, somebody is going to be very happy around here. But let's not jump to conclusions. Corporations such as the defunct Dairy Corporation have been known to have been offered to an investor for 1 US dollar.
The 2 million acres, or 3,125 sq. miles may well have been donated as a gift, a free-hold lease, a Kibanja or a goodwill piece of ttakka, for 49, 99 years, or in perpetuity, world without end. Amen.
Now let's put this into some kind of perspective. To get to 3,125 sq. miles, you need a tract of land measuring some 60 miles by 52 miles with a balance of 5 sq. miles.
On the Ugandan map, that is the rectangle between Kampala, Jinja, Kamuli, Nakasongola and back to Kampala. In a country where you run into a different district every 10 or 20 miles, we are talking about an awful number of districts, folks, and unfathomable number of "squatters".
When I was still a schoolboy, the Chinese were contracted to turn Kibimba swamp in what is now Bugiri District into a modern rice plantation.
This was the beauty of the Cold War. The Americans had built an ultra-modern high school called Tororo Girls' School on the main entry point from Kenya, where every person entering Uganda from Malaba was sure to get an eyeful of this architectural wonder.
Not to be outdone, the Soviet Union built Busitema Mechanised Agricultural College 30 miles down the same road, making sure that their showpiece would also be visible to everybody travelling south to the capital. The Chinese decided to have nothing to do with schools and colleges.
They opted for a rice scheme a few miles downstream from Busitema, straddling both sides of the highway so that even the blind would have no option but to "see" the wonders of Chinese technology.
For good measure, they built the Mandela National Stadium at Namboole where every visitor to Uganda's capital would see it instead of Nansana where the Obote I Government had wanted it built.
I don't know what else the rivaling super powers bilked out of this sweet country on top of the prestige, but it has gotten me thinking:
Why can't the Egyptians spell out the tonnage of wheat and corn they need annually and we set about producing the cereals and grains for them ourselves?
Aren't we good enough? The President is always boasting of Uganda's capacity to feed East Africa, East and Central Africa, Africa, and indeed the whole world: what is so special about wheat and corn which necessitates us to mortgage a chunk of our country to Egypt?
A few years ago, some Iranian dignitary came here. He tasted our sweet bananas (bogoya) and pronounced them the most heavenly fruit on God's earth.
But instead of working out a trade agreement whereby his country would be supplied by an indigenous consortium of Ugandan farmers, he asked for land where Iranians would come and grow bogoya for their country in Uganda! The cheek !
But Uganda being Uganda, if somebody has already given away 2 million acres of fertile land then I suggest that they get the Kiruhura, Ntungamo and Lake Mburo triangle and call it New Misiri. For Land and My Country.
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