Lukaya town boss plots to raze forests

KALUNGU. The Lukaya Town Council chairperson, Mr Gerald Ssenyondo, has asked his technical team to speed up the process of destroying all forests in the town council, claiming they are a source of insecurity in the area.

Mr Ssenyondo said forests mainly of eucalyptus and pine trees are habouring criminals who are terrorising the area.
He said the criminals hide in thick parts of the forests during day and move out at night to attack their targets.

“Those forests have become a den of thieves and other notorious acts. We cannot keep the trees when residents are being mugged and women raped. I have asked the town clerk to talk to the owners so that they harvest the eucalyptus trees and plant new trees outside the town if they want,” Mr Ssenyondo said during an interview on Wednesday.

Insecurity in Lukaya Town Council has spiked in the past couple of months and police records show that three people have been attacked by iron bar hit men while one woman was raped and later killed.
“A good number of criminals have been arrested and taken to court and some are on remand,” Mr Vianney Birungi, the officer-in-charge of Lukaya Police Station, said.

Pledge
Mr Ssenyondo said when criminals first attacked town dwellers last year the owners of eucalyptus and pine trees had promised to harvest the trees but none of them took heed .
“…some of the eucalyptus forests are near schools which puts students at greater risk of being attacked by criminals. If this time round they refuse to cut the trees, we shall drag them to court,” he said.

The authorities pointed out the most infamous criminal hideouts in eucalyptus forests as located in Agip Cell, Kakooza Cell, Nabisoga Cell and Kayunga Cell.
Mr Haruna Lwamunda, who owns a 13 acre –eucalyptus forest in Kakooza Cell, said Mr Ssenyondo’s proposal is not in good faith and advised him to focus on other causes of insecurity in the area.
“It could be true that the criminals hide in the forests but what happened to those who are supposed to keep law and order in the town?” he asked.

Environmentalists say
Mr David Kureeba, an environmentalist and programme coordinator at National Association of Professional Environmentalists, said cutting down eucalyptus trees and leaving stumps is more dangerous to environment compared to the available trees.
“Unless they are going to destroy them completely. Eucalyptus trees at that stage have consumed a lot of water, so cutting them down will expose the soil to erosion, winds and death of foraging pollinators and other livelihood of other living things, “ he said.

Mr Kureeba insteead advised the leaders to devise other means of improving security in the area and abandon the proposal to cut down the trees . “ Let him [Ssenyondo] also encourage residents to plant indigenous trees like Mahogany , Mvule and Musizi,” he added.

Background

During a meeting to discuss the security situation in the town early this week, Col Griffin Kantinti, who represented Brig Joseph Ssemwanga, the commander of Masaka-based Armoured Brigade Barracks, promised to send some armed soldiers to beef up police officers in the area.
Lukaya Town, which has a population of 37,000 people is slowly turning into a business hub because of its strategic location on the Kampala-Masaka highway

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