Before the bulldozers came, Magdalena Nakamya harvested coffee,
cassava, avocado and jackfruit on her three-hectare (seven-acre) plot on
Kalangala, an island in Lake Victoria.
But on a July morning in 2011, Nakamya, 64, awoke to find yellow
machines churning up her land and razing the crops she had grown in a
bid to make way for palm oil plantations.
“No one came to talk to me before they destroyed my crops,” says
Nakamya. “I heard that some people were given money, but I didn’t
receive anything.”
Oil Palm Uganda Limited (Opul) was launched in 2002, following an agreement signed between the government and Bidco Uganda, a food producer, with the aim of increasing palm oil production in the country.
In 2011, Opul acquired land leases from a Ugandan businessman, Amos Ssempa, with the aim of expanding its plantations. About 7,500 hectares (18,500 acres) of oil palm have been planted since 2002 (pdf). Opul describes the project as part of an initiative to increase vegetable oil production in the country.
Mangdelena Nakamya, 64, now lives on church land after she was evicted from her land in Kangala. Photograph: Alon Mwesigwa
Francis Ssemogerere, 55, tended 3.6 hectares of land for 30 years
until he was evicted in the same year as Nakamya. No compensation was
paid to him either. “They took all of [my land]. They promised to come
back and pay me but they never came back,” Ssemogerere says.
Uganda’s constitution requires
authorities to obtain a court order to evict people from their land,
and compensation must also be paid. Nakayama and Ssemogerere are from a
community of more than 100 people in Kalangala who claim they were
evicted from their land illegally.
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The
palm oil project is supported by the UN’s International Fund for
Agricultural Development (Ifad). Bidco and global palm oil giant Wilmar
International are major investors. In 2004, the World Bank withdrew from the project amid concern that it was not complying with the bank’s forestry policies (pdf).
Anne van Schaik, accountable finance campaigner at Friends of the
Earth Europe, said: “Wilmar and its subsidiaries, backed by European
money, are forcing communities from their land in Uganda.”
On 19 February, a group of farmers filed a lawsuit against Bidco Uganda and Amos Ssempa, who leased the land to Opul.
A spokeswoman for Wilmar said: “No one had been evicted for the Opul
project. Where it was not possible for the occupants to leave the land
in question, the specific area was set aside and no oil palm development
took place. We believe we have developed one of the best oil palm
plantations in Africa in Kalangala and the local people have benefited
tremendously from the project.”
Bidco Uganda general manager Suvrajit Ghosh denied knowledge of the case.
Ssempa says “due processes were followed and farmers were
compensated”. He says: “They [the farmers] signed that they received the
money.”
Ann Turinayo, communication and knowledge management officer for Ifad
Uganda, says: “Ifad is not involved in any land acquisition. What we do
is that we give highly subsidised finance to government which benefits
small farmers in Kalangala.
“We [Ifad] support people who are growing oil palms on their own
land. There are more than 1,600 farmers in Kalangala, who are growing
oil palms at a commercial basis on their own land, and these are the
people we support.”
While some of the farmers agreed to be compensated, they say the
money they have received is insufficient for the value of the land they
have lost and the food that has been destroyed. Some farmers claim they
were coerced into signing for the money.
Desire Nsamba Kiggundu, 43, one of the affected farmers, says seven
of his 12 acres were taken yet he was given only 250,000 Uganda
shillings ($86.30) in compensation.
“I was told, ‘If you don’t sign for this money, do you have lawyers to argue in court?’” Kiggundu said.
Emmanuel Kyambazi, 41, experienced something similar. He says he was
forced to sign for 100,000 shillings ($34.50) in compensation for his 10
acres of land.
David Balironda, the Kalangala district production officer, said he saw people being compensated.
Asked why he had not objected to the fact that the compensation did
not match the value of people’s land and food, he said: “It was their
agreement with the landlord. These people were squatters on someone’s
land. They agreed on the amount of money.”
He added: “I blame the NGOs; it is them amplifying people to rise up and demand for land even when they were compensated.”
A palm oil plantation in Kalangala. Photograph: Alon Mwesigwa
Opul says it has so far recruited 1,200 local workers, including
university graduates. It says the palm oil production will bring
benefits for the area. “The project aspires to provide the people of
Kalangala district with a great opportunity to immensely improve their
quality of life. We have, for example, started construction and
maintenance of roads, set up a clinic and housing for our employees.”
Frank Muramuzi, director of the National Association of Professional
Environmentalists (Nape)/Friends of the Earth Uganda, said: “Wilmar and
the other palm oil companies are aware of the fact that communities have
been displaced but have to date not been able to resolve the problems.
“This project was sold to the residents of Kalangala with promises of
employment and a brighter future. But they were not fairly compensated
for the loss of their livelihoods, and now without access to land face a
daily struggle to get by.”
Friends of the Earth Uganda argue that the project has had a
devastating effect on the environment. “A large proportion of the palm
oil plantations are in areas previously covered by natural forest. An
estimated 3,600 hectares of forest have been destroyed to make way for
the palm oil plantations, including 100 hectares of the protected Gala
forest reserve in Bugala, Kalangala,” it said in a 2012 report (pdf).
Samuel Lowe, a land campaigner at Friends of the Earth England, Wales
and Northern Ireland, said: “This case clearly shows that we cannot
expect companies and financiers to regulate themselves. We need binding
regulations in Europe so financiers can no longer provide their services
to companies engaged in land grabbing.
Land disputes in Uganda are not unusual and, as the government dishes
out land to foreign investors, it is the local farmers who are usually
the victims.
In 2011, a
report by Oxfam said at least 20,000 farmers had been evicted from a
government-owned forest in Mubende and Kiboga districts in central
Uganda to make way for a British forestry company, New Forests Company (NFC).
Bill to control tobacco use in trouble as traders,
farmers denounce it
Alon Mwesigwa in Kampala
Fred Okippi’s five acres of tobacco garden in
his backyard are a lush of green vegetation.
As he carefully prunes unwanted leaves, the
jubilant plants whirl to the wind’s direction.
Okippi, wearing a pale black t-shirt and a red
hat with a cream band, delicately bends stems to thread his way through, softly
humming to perhaps a carol of glee and hope.
“This [tobacco] is my future,” he says.
“If government wants to ban tobacco use, then
we are going to suffer. Where are we going to get money to educate our
children?”
All Okippi’s neighbours in Lamuorungur village
in the Uganda’s western district of Kiryandongo grow tobacco as their cash crop.
“Our parents grew tobacco and we took on the
trade after their death, says Onen Can, Okippi’s neighbour, who has about seven
acres.
Can, 56, and Okippi, 55, have grown tobacco
all their lives.
They don’t understand why the Uganda can even
contemplate on enacting a law that could threaten farming the “precious” crop.
Other crops like maize aren’t as profitable as
tobacco, they say.
Last year, Okippi says, a kilogram was bought
at Shs 4000 ($1.6) while that of maize was Shs 750 ($ 0.3).
There are estimated 75,000 tobacco farmers in
Uganda. Tobacco is widely grown in Arua, Kanungu, Koboko, Kiryandongo, and
Masindi districts.
In March, when a Member of Parliament Dr Chris
Baryomunsi tabled the Tobacco Control Bill 2014 to restrict tobacco growing, sell,
and marketing, farmers and traders were riled.
Baryomunsi said farmers had benefited nothing
from decades of tobacco farming – many remain inundated in squalor and extreme
poverty.
Neither Okippi nor Can has managed to build a
permanent house – both live in grass thatched huts. Sometimes, they struggle to
get a day’s meal.
They say their children go to school because
of tobacco.
Baryomunsi, a medical doctor, says the bill seeks
to protect Ugandans from illnesses like cancer.
Farmers have denounced the bill, although it has
gained massive support from the medical fraternity.
The bill, expected to be passed into law later
this year, thisseeks to prohibit smoking within 100 metres of
any public place, work place, and means of public transport.
It puts a full ban on tobacco advertising,
promotion, and sponsorship.
Dr Sheila Ndyanabangi, a tobacco control focal
person at Uganda’s ministry of Health said tobacco had no benefit other than straining
the health system.
“Tobacco kills,” Nduanabangi said. “We want to
make it extremely hard for one to find or smoke a cigarette.”
“At the Uganda Cancer Institute, we followed
history of most patients diagnosed with lung cancer, cancer of the mouth,
throat and oesophagus and found they had been smoking.”
This is how shattering a problem tobacco is,
she added.
Minister of Health Dr Ruhakana Rugunda has
called for tax increment on all tobacco products to force some smokers to quit. He said it would also reduce the
uptake and use of tobacco products by the youths.
Okippi and Can are aware tobacco brings
cancer, but are among the 15% Ugandans who smoke.
“I hear that tobacco causes cancer, but I have not
even got any problem,” said Okippi smiling sheepishly displaying his russet
teeth.
Uganda’s national referral
hospital Mulago says 75% of patients with oral cancer there had a history of
smoking, with the number of smoking years ranging from 2-33 years, according to
a 2008 study report by Fredrick Musoke, a don at Kampala’s Makerere University.
The Centre for Tobacco Control
Africa says 13, 500 Ugandans die annually due to tobacco use. Worldwide, the World Health
Organisation estimates five million people die per year.
Almost three quarters of deaths from lung, trachea and
bronchus cancers are attributable to tobacco use.
By 2030, tobacco use will kill
more than 8 million people annually.
Ugandan traders are not convinced. They have
described the bill as “draconian.”
If passed, they said, it would not only hamper
their profitability, but also hurt the economy.
Everest Kayondo, Kampala City Traders’ Association
(KACITA) chairperson said:
“If people have invested their money, then
they should be given a favourable environment to sell it.”
In 2011, Uganda earned Shs 87.5bn ($37.7m) in
taxes from tobacco, making it one of the top ten revenue sources.
Yet there is more harm than good in tobacco.
A 2012 survey by a Kampala-based NGO Platform
for Labour Action, (PLA) found
most children in tobacco growing homesteads missed half of their school time
during planting and harvesting seasons.
In 2007, Uganda ratified the WHO
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, but it remained without a tobacco
control law.
Kenya
and Tanzania, Uganda’s neighbours, have tobacco control laws.
In a joint statement, tobacco producing companies
in the country, which includes British American Tobacco (BAT), Ugandan Tobacco
Services Ltd, and Continental Tobacco (U) Ltd, said government was likely to
lose Shs 100bn ($39 million) in annual revenue.
“The law must make a distinction between
the products sought to be regulated and the individual corporate entity that
enjoys fundamental rights and freedoms. The law should not seek to ban
legitimate trade activities,” reads the statement.
To farmers Okippi and Can, the law is
nothing but out to deny them daily income.
In
Uganda, the state covertly intimidate and influence dismissal from duty of
journalists thought to be ‘critical’ to government
Alon Mwesigwa in Kampala
Taylor
Krauss, an American journalist and freelance filmmaker was last July deported
from Uganda after spending three days in detention. His crime was that he was
found filming Dr Kiiza Besigye, the main opposition figure to president Museveni.
Government says he had entered the country without journalist accreditation.
Krauss’
equipment was taken, footage deleted, and he was interrogated for several hours
by the Uganda Police in Kampala.
Krauss
is just one of tens of hundreds of journalists that face attacks on the
continent. A report released on Tuesday on the press freedoms in Uganda, showed
that 124 violations targeting journalists were recorded last year. Eighty five
of these were by the Uganda Police.
Titled
Narrowing space; media under attack,
by the Human Rights Network for Journalist Uganda (HRNJ-U) and Open Society
Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA), the report says the media in Uganda
faced the toughest year in 2013 as reports of attacks increased, with two
journalists being killed under unclear circumstances.
“The
deaths reveal the extreme dangers faced by journalists in the execution of
their work. The risk is higher with journalists who work during odd hours of
the night, particularly female journalists,” said the report, which interviewed
victims, witnesses, and alleged perpetrators.
“Police
employed various tactics like detention without trial, roughing up journalists,
barring them from accessing news scenes, and deliberately tear gassing them,”
says the report.
The
report saysgovernment officials
influencing dismissal of reporters. Some journalists in Uganda lost their jobs
after they hosted opposition figures, the government regarded as ‘dangerous’
and were inciting the violence.
Last
year, the report says, two laws inimical to free press were passed. The Uganda
Communications Act 2013 and the Pubic Order Management Act 2013. The former
empowers the minister of Information to give directive to the communications
commission to investigate journalists and media houses thought to go against
their guidelines.
The
latter provides that a journalist would be arrested if found covering a
gathering of more than three people without police permission.
Uganda’s
Daily monitor and Red pepper newspapers were closed for ten days after they
published a leaked letter that said Museveni was grooming his son to succeed
him.
The
UN Special Rapporteur to Uganda Margaret Ssekagya said: “The report highlights
a worrying trend by revealing the perpetrators. The courts must adjudicate and
ensure the rights of journalists aren’t violated.”
Yet
Uganda is not alone.
In
the East African region, reports of media coming under attack have come to the
fore. After the September Westgate Mall terrorist attacks in Kenya,
Police Inspector-General David Kimaiyo threatened to arrest journalists John
Allan Namu and Mohammed Ali of KTN television after they aired a story that
raised questions over the conduct and coordination of security forces at the
time of the attack.
Kimaiyo
said the journalists intended to incite the public against
government.
Last
December, Kenya parliament passed two laws thought to be targeting the media.
Journalists went to court and on January 31, a Nairobi-based court halted implementation of the Media Council Act 2013 and
Kenya Information and Communications (Amendment) Act 2013 until the court
considers the legal questions therein.
The media in Kenya says the laws violate Article 34
of Kenya’s constitution, which guarantees the media sector protection from
government influence.
In
Tanzania, the situation is not any better.
The
New York-based Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ) last August reported
that some journalists have been attacked while critical media was being shut
down.
In
July 2012, CPJ says, the
Tanzania’s Information Ministry indefinitely suspended
the leading critical weekly, MwanaHalisi; its editor Saed
Kubenea saidthe
government-ordered shutdown emanated from the paper’s in-depth coverage of a
2012 physicians’ strike.
In
Rwanda, journalists have been exiled to Uganda and other countries while others
have been imprisoned for allegedly defaming President Paul Kagame.
Elsewhere
on the continent, Aljazeera journalists, a BBC correspondent, and Dutch newspaper and radio journalist among othersare
under-going trial in Egypt for allegedly spreading false news and
supporting the Muslim Brotherhood,
which was designated a terrorist organisation. The trial has instigated would
outcry over flinching press freedom on the continent.
In Somalia, CPJ says in 2012 alone twelve journalists were killed while on duty. In
the capital Mogadishu, four journalists were dead in a 24-hour period in September
2012. The statistic makes Somalia one of the worst places for journalists on the continent.
CPJhas
also listed Eritrea, Ethiopia and Egypt as having the biggest number of
imprisoned journalists in Africa.
"I think they have
been on this list year-in, year-out simply because of the governments' lack of
tolerance towards any kind criticism. Every time a reporter reports something
critically, they throw them in jail," Tom Rhodes, CPJ’s
Nairobi-based east Africa representative, told Voice of America recently.
In Libya, journalists are
expected to keep tight-lipped over the excesses of government.
Several journalists have reportedly been physically assaulted with government
showing less effort to protect them.
Its 2pm on a Thursday and Julius Abigaba walks into a betting shop in Wandegeya, a suburb of Kampala, Uganda's capital.
Abigaba,
26, was unlucky last night. He lost his bet of 10,000 shillings ($4) on
four English football teams. He could have won 220,000 shillings($90).
"Just
one team – Manchester United's loss to Everton – killed my receipt but
today I will bet carefully," he says."I can lose today, but tomorrow I
will win." Abigaba, a development studies graduate from Makerere
University, is just outside the International Labor Organisation's 15-24
year-old age range for global youth unemployment, estimated at 73 million.
As
a student, he dreamed big – to finish his education, work with a large
organisation and, perhaps, earn a good wage. Three years after
graduating, there are no jobs, and not even the hope that there will be
any soon.
In the nearby Planet supermarket, William Mugisha
dusts shelves. An environmental science graduate, he counts himself
lucky to at least be earning something. "I just wanted an income to live
on, however little," Mugisha says.
Youth unemployment in Uganda is the highest in Africa. A recent study, Lost opportunity? Gaps in youth policy and programming in Uganda, published by ActionAid, put youth unemployment at 62%, although the African Development Bank says it could be as high as 83%.
Uganda has the world's largest percentage of young people under 30 – 78% – according to the to the 2012 State of Uganda population report by the UN Population Fund. Worldwide, there are about 1.2 billion 15- to 24-year-olds. About 200 million are in Africa.
In
the past decade, Uganda has experienced strong GDP growth, averaging 7%
annually, but this has not generated jobs, a trend seen across the
continent. Lack of employment is causing some young people to take risks. Last July, 36 young people, who had been running motorcycle taxis, were burnt to death as they tried to siphon fuel from a truck that had been involved in an accident.
And
some young women are taking jobs overseas only to find themselves
forced into prostitution, according to Ugandan police. "Every month, we
get reports of over 20 Ugandans stranded seeking help. If the figure is
multiplied in a year, it comes to over 250 Ugandans stranded abroad
every year," says Moses Binoga, co-ordinator of the Anti-human
Trafficking National Task Force.
Other young people are
involved in drug trafficking. Dr Paul Nyende, a senior lecturer at
Makerere University's School of Psychology, says young people with
nothing to do are more easily lured into crime. "They can easily be
lured into drug trafficking on promise of big pay," he says. "Many young
people don't want to go back to the villages and do farming after
campus. They want to stay and enjoy city life."
Yet the
city cannot support them. It is estimated that more than 40,000 young
people graduate from Ugandan universities each year. Yet the market can
provide only 8,000 jobs annually. Professor Augustus Nuwagaba,
director of Reeve Consults Uganda, believes the problem lies in the
education system. He says the country is stuck with the colonial
education system that trains students to be clerks, teachers and
lawyers. Times have changed, Nuwagaba says, and the country needs metal
fabricators, carpenters and mechanics. Foreign investors also bemoan the
lack of skilled workers in Uganda.
Lack of skills is a global problem. The International Labour Organisation (ILO)
says training institutions continue to produce graduates whose skills
do not match what the market wants. This mismatch makes it harder to
tackle youth unemployment.
"As much as two-thirds of the
young population is under-utilised in some developing economies, meaning
they are unemployed, in irregular employment – most likely in the
informal sector – or neither in the labour force nor in education or
training," says the ILO report Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013 –
A Generation at Risk.
East African governments that have
discovered oil and gas – Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania – are grappling with
how to use this to create job opportunities.
The "youth
bulge" in Uganda's population has been recognised by the UN, with skills
training and job creation among the targets suggested in drafts for the
post-2015 development goals.
In Uganda, the government is attempting to tackle the problem. The 2012-13 budget allocated $10m to the Youth Venture Capital Fund
to supply young people with startup capital. The state has also entered
into partnerships with private companies to help train young people to
set up businesses.
Charles Ocici, executive director of one of those companies, Enterprise Uganda,
said: "A young person has got all it takes to start a job. No one
should talk about lack of experience … it's the kind of literature you
read and the people you associate with that will determine your
success."
As for Abigaba, he's still betting on a change in his fortunes.
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and his government have vowed to tackle corruption. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
The Ugandan government has been criticised for failing to take action against senior officials implicated in corruption scandals, according to a new report.
"The only conviction of a minister was overturned on appeal in 2013, after president [Museveni] himself offered to pay his legal costs," said the report, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Yale Law School's Allard K Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic.
The report describes corruption in Uganda as "severe, well-known" and something that "cuts across many sectors".
The report analysed 114 judgments issued by the anti-corruption court since its creation in 2009, and included interviews with current and former officials from the inspectorate of the government auditor general and the directorate of public prosecutions, MPs, legal attorneys, journalists and NGOs, conducted between May and August this year.
The report said there was limited information available to the public about some of these cases – only information for 34 judgments was publicly available from the Uganda Legal Information institute.
President Museveni and his government have repeatedly promised to stamp out corruption, but major corruption scandals resurface in government departments and ministries, said the report.
"This report is essential because this is the time when many donors are in a state of reflection to see how they can keep on assisting on development," said Maria Burnett, a senior Africa researcher at HRW. "Donors need to know that there is an element of impunity and lack of political will when it comes to [corruption] cases that are politically sensitive."
Pertinent to Uganda's case, the report said, is that those who testify against the powerful government officials are often intimidated and threatened.
Anti-corruption activists have been arrested, while NGOs that speak out arethreatened with de-registration or closure. Political interference, patronage, lack of appointed personnel in anti-corruption institutions have also hampered efforts to fight graft.
The report cites major corruption scandals that have hit the country recently, in which high-level government officials were accused, but none were prosecuted.
Meanwhile, millions of dollars were diverted from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation in 2006, and from the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2010. "Despite investigations, none of the high-ranking government officials who managed the implicated offices have faced criminal sanction. Most often they have remained in office, untouched, while individuals working at the technical level have faced prosecution and, in some cases, jail time," said the report.
It added: "Mid-level managers faced prosecutions but the implicated ministers resigned only to return recently to key posts in government."
The prime minister Amama Mbabazi has also been accused of having been involved in corruption cases, including allegations related to the sale of land to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), only to receive protection from the President Museveni, said the report.
The Ugandan government is relying more on China for development assistance, especially for infrastructure projects, because Beijing does not impose the same conditions of democracy and human rights on its aid as traditional donors.
The HRW report said corruption in the country had mainly impacted ordinary people, as money intended for public services including life-saving treatment or infrastructure projects have all but been misappropriated.
Yet the country loses up to $258.6m (£160.3m) a year due to corruption, according to 2007 the African Peer Review Mechanism report.
Cissy Kagaba, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda told Kampala's Observer newspaper that "even when there have been steps to fight corruption through the creation of institutions like IGG, DPP and the public accounts committee, all these have been made inefficient due to lack of political will".
The report says if the Ugandan government is committed to fighting corruption, it must stop arrests and intimidation of anti-corruption activists and strengthen the protections afforded to investigators, prosecutors and witnesses.
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