By Kusiima Alfred
Dear Sheila Nduhukire, greetings from Bunyoro Region and Uganda. Responding to your article, I wish to inform you that you need to synthesize your new assumed analysis on the economic perspective of benefits of Bugoma Forest.
For the Record;
1.Government of Uganda through her MDA’s holds Uganda’s Resources in Trust for the people of Bunyoro/Uganda, so let us start putting the people of Bunyoro/Uganda at the center while spinning the Bugoma Forest Issues.
2. We don’t need an economist to ascertain the benefits of any project to communities especially to Bunyoro Region in this context.
3. You have invested a lot in your communication career to just disgrace yourself by sweeping it down to the trenches for just a pay cheque as (a spokesperson). I value your religious background so I request you Invest in Integrity.
4. Our forefathers were smart enough to document proof for what belongs to them rather than manipulation and doctoring of documents we see in some public offices by some officials who have personal benefits. “Animal farm phenomena,”
5. Start perceiving your envisaged benefits of the sugar project in-terms of a “community Equity” perspective. We can get better solutions to our Poverty using other alternatives than putting Bugoma on the spot.
That said;
1. We are done listening and reading about spinners whose agenda is to divide and impoverished communities especially Bunyoro for just a pay Cheque.
2. We are done being told about sugar cane creating Jobs,contribution of the project to GDP,Improvement of infrastructural development, benefits of the project to kibube district. Bunyoro Region has all it takes to do better in other agricultural and industrial value chains if enablers are not robbed and blocked.
3. Stop spinning the Bugoma Forest Issue by saying “Falsehood works” by Environmental activities initiatives. We have a record of what our forefathers worth were in terms of benefits of this Forest to communities.
4. Bunyoro and Bugoma isn’t the only last priority for your so called “beneficial Project” than what we see our people go through like becoming servants to quasi Landlords on their own Land.
5. There is no better way of measuring the legality you quote in your article than manifestation of real legal processes eating up communities. The illegality is visible in the lives of the poor if you don’t see it. We know how the legal opportunists in this confusion spin the wheels.
“The project will improve the livelihood of the people”they keep telling us. We are done being told of the future and we want to see it now. We are left with no choice but champion the restructuring of the functions of some corrupt government officials if it calls for that. Let the spinners in this issue stop fooling Banyoro and Ugandans.
We need SMART thinkers in this generation than conventional oriented jokers deliberately pretending not to know what to do with intention of taking from communities. Not all developed countries depend on sugar cane production but have their nationals happy managing their carbon emissions with all the benefits.
If you have no interest in seeing communities of Bunyoro Region and Uganda improved,let those who can do this provide solutions. Let your masters give communities enablers for development and come see what communities can do. We don’t want to be spoon fed , if the envisioned frameworks think Bugoma will give us that.
King of Glory,where did my NRM Party of the “10 Points Program” disappear?. We didn’t have this approach as a mechanism to give wanahichi better lives.
“In Africa people with power have no Ideas and those with Ideas don’t have Power” – (Patrick Lumumba)
What an Irony and Tragedy!!!!!!!!!.
Kusiima Alfred’s opinion comes after a group of environment conservation activists have been protesting clearance of Hoima Sugar Limited to use 21 square miles carved out of Bugoma Central Forest Reserve to establish a sugar factory alongside other developments.
The ownership of the land was contested by the Bunyoro Kingdom, Hoima sugar on one hand and the National Forestry Authority on the other hand. In the last five years, NFA has lost two cases as Judges ruled in favour of Hoima Sugar limited and Bunyoro Kingdom.
The Bugoma Forest is a tropical forest that is situated southwest of Hoima and northeast of Kyenjojo towns, and east of Lake Albert, in the Hoima district of western Uganda.
It was gazetted in the 1930s and came under the mandate of the National Forestry Authority in 2003 covering an area of 400 km².
WHO IS KUSIIMA ALFRED?
Kusiima Alfred is a Ugandan Rural Finance International Consultant and currently the Founder and Team Leader of Development Revolvers Ltd, an International advisory service firm dedicated to building an inclusive and prosperous global economy through integrated capacity and capital services for Clean Energy SMEs and Cooperatives across Africa.
He traces his passion for Clean Energy and Environmental Conservation 12 years back while working at the methane gas extraction project in Rwanda. He later joined Oil and Gas in Nairobi, then came back home in Uganda and joined the Biomass/Renewable Energy sector 3 years ago, serving as a National Coordinator for the Uganda National Alliance on Clean Cooking until February 2020.
He envisages communities in Uganda where he is born in Bunyoro Region and Africa access affordable Clean Energy, A green Africa and communities benefiting from extractives while placing community equity is a priority. He joins the rest of the World in the Campaign against destruction of Bugoma Forest.
