No money to survey Migingo Island, says minister
PARLIAMENT
The Lands ministry has failed to secure money to demarcate Uganda’s Migingo Island boundaries, Minister Daudi Migereko has said.
He said the House Budget Committee, which has just concluded scrutinising the different ministries FY2016/17 policy statements could not help.
“I have been interacting with the chairperson of the Budget Committee [of Parliament, Mr Amos Lugoloobi], requesting for funds to help us to solve the problem of Migingo Island. I have been told ‘there is no money’. The chairperson tried. But he [the chairperson] said, ‘Daudi, I am having a problem; I don’t know how I can help you’,” Mr Migereko said during plenary on Tuesday, May 3.
However, Mr Migereko did not say how much money he had asked for.
Mr Lugoolobi, who by the time the Daily Monitor went to press was still presenting the committee’s report, did not respond to Mr Migereko’s claim.
The Lands minister had last week told Parliament that given the pressures that are building up in Kenya over the island, Uganda and Kenya had agreed to reestablish the boundary between the two states “sooner than later”.
Parliament is expected to conclude the appropriation of money for the different ministries and government agencies programmes by the close of this month.
In the case of Migingo Island, the government might have to raise the money for surveying Migingo from other sources, soon.
Last month, Mr Jakoyo Midiwo, a Kenyan legislator, urged the Kenyan government to use military means to settle the Migingo Island ownership issue.
His remarks came on the heels of the Uganda Police Force’s personnel arrest of two Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya officials who had go to the Migingo Island to register Kenyans to be eligible to vote during Kenya’s 2017 general election.
Meanwhile, Mr Migereko urged Ugandans to think of other means of survival other than reling on land.
“Almost everybody has been told that ‘your livelihood, by and large, depends on land’. Therefore, land has become a precious commodity and economic good, which it never used to be. The new thinking that must emerge should stem away some of the pressure that we currently have on land. How? By creating other opportunities for survival,” said Mr Migereko in response to the increasing cases of land conflicts in the country.
He also blamed the District Land Boards (DLBs) for land grabbing.
“Unfortunately, even when members [of the district land boards] are dropped and new ones are appointed, their conduct is the same. You decide to get rid of one district land board because of malpractice A, B, C or D. A new team comes in place and it does exactly the same things that get the Lands ministry problems with the previous land board.”
