Registration of landslide victims starts in Mt Elgon region
Destruction. Residents of Bukalasi Sub-county in Bududa look on as mudslides ravage their homes on October 11. Several people were killed. PHOTO BY LEONARD MUKOOLI
What you need to know:
- The resettlement scheme is being developed on three plots where Plot 94 measuring 270 acres (250 houses), Plot 157, which is 918 acres (650 houses), while Plot 198 measuring 1,688 acres will be reserved for mechanised agricultural production.
BUDUDA. The government has started the registration of landslide victims as part of the process to finally relocate and resettle them in the acquired 2,800 acres of land in Bunambutye Sub-county in Bulambuli District.
The exercise commenced recently in Bududa District, where more than 500 households will be considered for the first phase of resettlement, out of the 900 set to be moved by February, 2019.
The other remaining 400 households will be selected from other Elgon districts, which include Namisindwa, Bulambuli, Manafwa and Sironko, with each allocated 100 households.
Mr Julius Mucunguzi, the head of communications in the office of the Prime Minister, told Daily Monitor on Monday that:
“The team is on the ground and registration is ongoing. They have so far registered victims in several sub-counties in Bududa before they start in other districts,” he said.
Some of the sub-counties that have so far been covered include Bukalasi, Buwali, Buluchecke, Bumayoka, Bubiita, among others.
Mr Mucunguzi added that they are using a bio-metric way of registration based on satellite images to identify victims, who are too vulnerable to landslides.
“We are prioritising the victims at a high risk of landslides in this first phase,” he said.
He explained that the construction of 900 houses on the said land is being conducted by Uganda People’s Defence Forces engineering brigade, the police and prisons construction unit.
“The storage containers and building materials including cement, sand, aggregate stones, among others have been delivered,” he said.
This comes after the Presidential Affairs committee report on the status of the resettlement of landslide victims in the Elgon Sub-region, which had recommended that resettlement process be halted, was rejected by Parliament.
However, the claimants of the Bunambutye land have threatened to sue the government over the said land.
“The government illegally acquired our land from the land grabbers. We will not rest until we are listened to because this is our land. We totally reject the decision by Parliament,” Mr Fred Chemuko, the leader of the complainants, said.
Mr Chemuko advised the landslide victims not to allow to be relocated to the said land until they have been compensated.
“We are willing to die on that land since the government and our MPs have abandoned us,” Mr Chemuko, said.
Mr Ibrahim Sipoy, another claimant, appealed to President Museveni to intervene and save them from the alleged land grabbers.
