Government makes U-turn, to pay off Naguru-Nakawa tenants
Affected. some of the tenants who were evicted from Naguru-Nakawa estates in 2011. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
- Meanwhile, OpecPrime Properties’ officials also told this newspaper separately that KCCA had given green light to their plans of subdividing the same Naguru land for construction of executive bungalows, a shopping mall, and they had already engaged some prospective customers.
- Compensation. According to Baligo, many of the affected residents prefer monetary compensation.
The government is considering constructing a conventional centre at Naguru after plans to redevelop the area into a modern satellite city comprising of among others maisonettes, flats, and executive bungalows, hit a wall.
The prime city land was in 2005 doled out to OpecPrime Properties-Uganda Ltd, an affiliate of the UK based Comer Group, an international commercial property company owned by Irish billionaire brothers Luke and Brian Comer, and hundreds of sitting tenants thrown out to pave way for redevelopment.
Following stagnation of the plans government is now in talks with the former tenants about cash compensation to forgo any claim to the land. The former tenants demanded last year that a portion of the land be transferred to them to redevelop it. In their submissions to government the tenants highlighted “readiness and capability” to engage a competent contractor/developer to construct for them low cost flats.
However, in the past weeks the Kampala Affairs minister, Ms Beti Kamya, officials from Office of Prime Minister and ministry of Local Government have held series of meeting with the tenants with a cash proposition.
Ms Kamya told this newspaper that Naguru is almost within boundaries of the Central Business District and thus cannot converted into an area for low-cost housings as previously envisaged.
She said the former tenants had been given permission to “discuss among themselves this option” and report back to government.
The chairperson of the former tenants, Mr Simon Baligo, told Daily Monitor yesterday majority in the group are “indeed in favour of cash” but added that “we think that if this is now the position a lot of things should be considered’ among others the manner in which they were evicted and prevailing economic conditions and land market values.
“We hope government is giving a fair bargain considering so many things,” Mr Baligo said. He said, for example, a piece of land in Naguru goes for Shs6b and if they (tenants) are to be paid off, some of plausible areas for resettlement would be Entebbe road, Kiira Municipality or Gayaza. “So consider at most Shs50m for price of land in those areas and between Shs50m—Shs60m for construction,” Mr Baligo added. “In total we are looking at not less than Shs120m.”
The government entered into contract with OpecPrime Properties first in 2007 and later in 2012 for construction to start, in no later than 4 years from the signature date, with 1,747 subsidised residential units (dedicated units) for purchase and resettlement of the registered former tenants, who had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with government.
