Gerald Bareebe
8 July 2009
President Museveni has stopped evictions of forest encroachers, despite appeals by the National Forestry Authority to protect the country's assets. According to the NFA boss, Mr Damian Akankwasa, the agency wrote to the President early this year seeking to evict over 180,000 illegal encroachers countrywide.
However, he told MPs yesterday, the President rejected the move. This, Mr Akankwasa said, had caused the number of encroachers to double to 360,000 presently. "In some forests you find that 90 per cent has been encroached on," he told the parliamentary committee on Commissions, State Enterprises and Statutory Authorities. "We registered all encroaches because we wanted to get their number before we could evict them. Unfortunately, the President gave an order stopping all impending evictions and we could not go against that."
President Museveni's Press Secretary confirmed last evening that his boss had issued the order stopping massive evictions by the forestry authority. "The President asked them to bring a scientific report categorising the different forests before they start the evictions but they have not come back with that report," said Mr Tamale Mirundi. "This is an elected government and we depend on people's support; we are therefore very sensitive when it comes to issues like massive evictions," he said.
According to Mr Mirundi, Mr Museveni wanted the NFA officials to categorise the forests such that evictions can be authorised in the forests that play an important ecological role "like those that affect rainfall". He blamed some forests officials of aiding illegal encroachers, to make money. However, Mr Akankwasa told MPs that the forestry authority had provided this information to the President.
Mr Godber Tumushabe, the executive director of Acode, a local environmental organisation, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the President was trying to achieve political gains by sacrificing the environment."All environmental agencies are in a trap because they cannot do much in a country where politics supersedes what is legal," Mr Tumushabe said.
Meanwhile, the MPs yesterday also asked Mr Akankwasa to provide them with information about the activities of Ms Sarah Nkonge, a board member of National Forest Authority who, according to MPs, has been implicated in illegal timber dealings. "People will kill you because they are angry that you have been applying the law selectively," Mr Ssebuliba Mutumba, (Kawempe North, DP) said. "She is a board member whose lorries have been caught in illegal timber business and you have done nothing," he added.
Mr Reagan Okumu, (FDC, Aswa) the committee chairman, ordered Mr Akankwasa to provide the legislators with information regarding Ms Nkonge's timber business.
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