The EACOP route will straddle ten districts between Hoima in western Uganda and Kyotera at the Tanzanian border. NET PHOTO

The Masaka Senior Resident Judge Lawrence Tweyanze has ruled that the government can proceed with the construction of East African Oil Pipeline (EACOP) before the affected landowners are compensated for their land.

The Government, through Attorney General, had petitioned Court after about 80 project-affected persons (PAPs) in Rakai, Kyotera, and Lwengo districts had dismissed a valuation report that had put the value of about 103 acres of their land at about UGX770 million (an average of about UGX7.5 million per acre), saying it was too little.

The EACOP is a multi-billion-dollar joint venture between Uganda and Tanzania, with international partners like TotalEnergies and CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation), whose objective is to evacuate billions of gallons of crude oil to the international market through the Tanzanian port of Tanga.

• The 1,440km EACOP, which traverses ten districts in Uganda, would affect hundreds of communities and the land acquisition and compensation process has led to costly delays in some districts.

Resident Judge Tweyanze last week agreed with the Attorney General that the Government should compulsorily acquire the land for the project after depositing the UGX770 million with the Court.

The Attorney General argued in court that the Project Assessment Officers have since February been attempting to meet the aggrieved PAPs to resolve the disputes, but they have been shunning the meetings and deliberately declined to give way for the project to proceed, hence threatening its planned implementation schedule

• Besides, the Attorney General also told the court that some of the PAPs have unresolved family disputes concerning the affected properties, as a result, the government is yet to find the right persons to receive the compensation.

He prayed that the project be allowed vacant possession of land in the demarcated route pending resolution of the disputes. However, the PAPs through their lawyer Peter Alinaitwe, contested the government’s applications on grounds that it deprived them of inherent rights to own property and receiving of fair compensation to forfeit the land for a public project.

They also claimed that the government hired manipulative evaluation contractors who eventually cheated them by allocating unfair compensation fees for their properties.

The Judge agreed with the government that some of the PAPs were untraceable to receive compensation, while those who claimed to be dissatisfied with the evaluation failed to convince the court in regard to the amount they wanted to be paid.

“The refusal to accept compensation, absence of legal representatives and inability to locate certain Respondents therefore, justify the depositing of the compensation sum in Court to as to legally discharge the Applicant's obligations while enabling the Government to take possession of the land and proceed with the project,” the judgment reads in part., adding that some of the respondents were okay with the assessed compensation awards.

• However, despite granting eviction and demolition orders against the PAPs, the Court cautioned the government against endangering human life in the process of forcefully acquiring the land.