The High Court in Masaka has granted government permission for compulsory acquisition of land from a section of affected persons of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline-EACOP project, who rejected compensation fees in Rakai, Kyotera, and Lwengo districts.
The Masaka Senior Resident Judge Lawrence Tweyanze, granted the application by the Attorney General that sought permission to proceed with acquiring land for the demarcated pipeline route, from 81 people who protested the evaluation and eventually the compensation fees allocated to them for their properties.
Last month, the Attorney General dragged the Project Affected Persons to court, accusing them of declining to receive the compensation fees allocated to them during the evaluation process, threatening the much-needed construction of the pipeline route through their properties.
The Attorney General told court that the evaluation team had earlier conformed to demands for reevaluation of properties from the PAPs, but these still went ahead to remain defiant despite being allowed increments in their respective compensation figures.
Court also heard 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.
The Attorney General applied that government be allowed permission to deposit with court a total of 771.69 million shillings; the compensation fees for defiant 81 PAPs, pending the hearing of any suit that may arise against the project.
Besides, the Attorney General also told court some of the PAPs have unresolved family disputes concerning the affected properties, as a result, 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, contended government’s applications on grounds that it deprive them of inherent rights to own property and receiving of fair compensation to forfeit the land for a public project.
They also allege that the government hired manipulative evaluation contractors who eventually cheated them through allocating unfair compensation fees for their properties.
Accordingly, they also asked court to dismiss the Attorney General’s applications, to allow them a right to freely negotiate for deserving compensation, or direct the project implementers to change the pipeline route to avoid the disputed properties.
However, the Masaka High Court Resident Lawrence Tweyanze granted government permission to take over their land measuring 102.49 acres to proceed with the project as planned.
The Judge held that besides some of the PAPs who are untraceable to receive compensation, those who claimed to be dissatisfied with the evaluation failed to convince the court in their arguments.
“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.
Moreover, some of the respondents are agreeable to the assessed compensation awards,” the judgment reads in part. Despite granting eviction and demolition orders and the PAPs, Court cautioned the government against endangering human life in the process of acquiring the land.