Namanve and Ssonde become more attractive as population shoots up

But in more recent years, it has become a battle ground between land grabbers and the powers of environmental institutions getting eroded”. Then someone wonders why the government has blindly failed to tell-off the owners of the companies that build in the city centre, rather then killing people with sound and air pollution yet there is free land for them.

Accesible to city centre
Joshua Opedun a resident says, “Transport is shs2000-shs2500 to go to town by taxi and the same when coming back. He says it fairly cost one shs1500 in the afternoon to and from town”.

Crime and development
The LC1 Chairman Edward Semakula says “development has been realised in the past seven years. Most people staying in Namanve have built self-contained houses unlike a few areas where the place was slummy”,

Semakula predicts that with time , “the whole place will be covered by various companies which are already showing interest in buying off all the owners of the land”.

Booming business park
The place has got companies like, Tororo cement factory. Azam Company, Namanve Railway Station, Coca-Cola Bottling Plant, Rwenzori Mineral Water Bottling Company, Red Pepper Publishing Company, Kampala industrial and Business Park, crested tanks, Darling hair and Cosmetics Company, B.AT, steel and tube industries, Hima cement and Roofings among many others.

This has made many workers shift to these areas because jobs are available. Some employees who have been working around these companies for years have bought land around the area.
However Semakula says, “iron-bar hit men have greatly increased, people are killed and injured almost every time”, when I asked him of his counter parts the police, he told me the criminals are far many than the policemen who have barely taken a year in the area and he says the criminals know how the police and his team operate, thus out-smarting them in everything.

He says the place is very dangerous from 9pm onwards and also early in the morning from 5am to 6am one can barely walk to the main road without being attached”, he also disappointingly adds that, even as early as 7pm a robber can snatch away your bag.
But this has not dettered people from settling in the area.