Prime
Museveni's charcoal ban raises fears of price hikes
A woman vends charcoal in Kira, Wakiso District, yesterday. News of the ban on commercial charcoal business excited leaders and residents in Acholi. PHOTO/FRANK BAGUMA.
What you need to know:
- The raft of the must-implement directives are contained in Executive Order Number 3 of 2023 dated May 19, which State House made public only yesterday.
President Museveni yesterday banned charcoal burning and business in northern and northeastern Uganda, banned the illegal presence of the Balaalo in northern Uganda and banned the Turkana from Kenya from entering Uganda with guns.
The raft of these must-implement directives are contained in Executive Order Number 3 of 2023 dated May 19, which State House made public only yesterday.
READ: Why charcoal export bans in Uganda have failed to work
Other orders included expedited works on security roads in Karamoja, and a restructuring of police to enforce deployment within the next three years, of 18 police persons and motorcycles per Sub-county throughout Uganda.
He also authorised recruitment of 12 Local Defense Unit personnel (LDUs) per parish in Karamoja and surrounding sub-regions to tackle sporadic cattle rustling, arguing that residents had lost trust in the army, some of whose commanders they accused of colluding with raiders and providing armed escorts to charcoal dealers.
We interrogate ramifications of the Executive Order.
Ban on charcoal burning and trade
The regions where the ban applies are Karamoja, Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile where security forces, especially commanders of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), are accused of aiding destroyers of the environment by guarding charcoal harvesters and transporters.
“In order to save the environment and also the reputation of the NRM, I, therefore, hereby ban the cutting of trees for charcoal burning,” President Museveni noted, citing extinction threats to valued Shea-butter trees.
News of the ban on commercial charcoal business excited leaders and residents in Acholi, with former Aruu Member of Parliament Odonga Otto valorizing it as a “great development”.
He, alongside Kilak South MP Gilbert Olanya, have over the months led local volunteers to track, arrest charcoal burners and sabotage transport, including deflating tyres of haulage trucks.
“We will go ahead to form structures under the Ribe Pi Paco (a vigilante group) in every hotspot where illegal tree cutting for commercial charcoal is taking place,” he said, pointing to the emboldening effect of the Executive Order on environmental crusaders.
Consultant economist Fred Muhumuza said the ban is likely to result in hike in prices of charcoal and substitute cooking gas for Ugandans able to afford, crowding out or choking energy supply for the impoverished.
“The question that this ban does not answer is, what do we do to sort the people who buy and use the charcoal? Based on the income levels of an average Ugandan, the alternatives available like gas cylinders are expensive and unavailable, not everybody can afford the gas cylinders,” he said.
Mr William Amanzuru, the coordinator of Friends of Zoka, an environmental pressure group in the region, was ecstatic. “The order is one key step in conserving the rapidly depleted environment,” he said, demanding immediate implementation.
Ban on Balaalo nomads in norther Uganda
The marauding herdsmen have been greeted in different parts of northern Uganda with expulsion resolutions by local governments, and claims that some are armed have stirred disquiet and inflamed tribal passions.
“By the authority of this Executive Order, no mulaalo should settle and bring cattle to Northern Uganda, except with the permission of the Minister of Lands and the Minister of Agriculture,” Mr Museveni directed.
They are to leave, according to the President, within the next five weeks and in any case by end of next month.
Whereas the expected departure of the nomads, who have conflicted with indigenous people over land ownership and rights to water and other communal facilities has been welcomed, Mr Augustine Ojara of Omoro District worries that the hurried order for them to exit the region could incite communities against the Balaalo.
It is unclear where they will relocate and, if they bought land, how their contractual rights will be guaranteed or compensated.
READ: Inside Musvenei's executive order
Ban on the Turkana entering Uganda with guns
The Turkana are a pastoral community in western Kenya, and share heritage with some of the sub-ethnic groups in Karamoja, explaining why they historically have crossed the frontier with Uganda to graze and water their cattle.
In the Executive Order, President Museveni accuses them of using guns to raid 2,245 cattle from the Jie in Uganda, killing three Ugandan geologists and two security officers and raping Uganda women.
“The Turkana must never come to Uganda with guns. Anybody who does so must be arrested and charged with treason by a court martial,” the Executive Order reads in part.
The ban, according to Mr Fred Egesa, a former police detective, will contain spread of illegal weapons and insecurity, especially in Karamoja and neighbouring districts.
Because the Turkana are a Kenyan community, it means the Executive Order in which Uganda demanded compensation for victims of violence blamed on the pastoralists has foreign policy implication and its full import will depend on how Kenya or its relevant County government responds.
Restructuring police to deploy 18 per sub-county
Uganda Police Force is presently 52,000-strong and implementing this aspect of the Executive Order means 36,000 of the personnel will head upcountry to safeguard the 2,000 sub-counties in the Uganda.
“I now direct the police, to implement this directive in the next three years, the countryside is under-policed, and that is why people use mob justice. My directive now is 18 police persons per sub-county in three years. Each police sub-county group must have three motorcycles,” he wrote.
Leaving 16,000 police personnel to handle other law enforcement or support services – traffic, investigations, cybersecurity, canine and crowd control - might turn challenging in crowded urban centres without addressing the police-population ratio currently below the United Nations recommended threshold.
“We must scrutinise if we just don’t have enough personnel; are we going to recruit more police officer or Local Defence Unit personnel or we are simply going to increase the number of guns into the hands of communities at the time people are killing themselves with guns,” asked Mr Egesa, an ex-police detective-turned-private investigator.
The President authorized recruitment of LDUs, a dozen per parish, to protect vulnerable communities in districts neighbouring Karamoja and as vigilantes to guard kraals in the sub-region.
Expedite works on security roads in Karamoja
The infrastructure opening or upgrade will link to porous borders with neighbouring Kenya and South Sudan and enhance mobility of security forces to respond to conflict flash points.
Some of the roads that the President wants worked on straddle from Lake Bisina, to Abim and Orom in Kitgum, and the one along the Kenya border from Amudat to Mount Moroto, skirting the mountain and linking westwards and continuing parallel to the border towards Mt Singira.
Whereas the focus is security, the new infrastructure will ease movement in Karamoja, Uganda’s least developed sub-region, helping mobility from farms to markets and from homes to health facilities.
