A forest reserve that fell to sand mining, fish ponds

Environmentalists have for some time made a public outcry over the rate at which Kyewaga central forest reserve has been degraded. The forest reserve near Missed Call beach is located 10km on Entebbe Road off Abaita-ababiri in Katabi Sub-county, Wakiso District.

The lakeshore forest covered 209 hectares in the last decade but has come under threat mainly by surrounding communities, high ranking security officers, government officials who illegally extract sand at the expense of the natural trees that are cleared to ease the activity.

Solomon Lwanga, a resident of Kitinda, says the forest was first attacked by people from the nearby community before city businessmen came in with excavators to clear forests to mine sand in the name of creating fish ponds.

“Youths from surrounding villages of Nkumba Central, Bufulu, Kisembi and Kitinda among others were the first to discover the great mineral of sand in the forest reserve and started mining it while clearing trees in the vicinity,” he says.

Lwanga recalls that after several years of communities sand mining while leaving huge ditches filled with water that was later used by other community members to make bricks, National Forest Authority (NFA) attempted to stop the activities but did not follow up and the illegal activities continued afterwards shortly.

Close neighbours near the forest who spoke on condition of anonymity say city businessman, Moses Twinomujuni, bought a piece of land from Seven Kings Estate Director, Sam Kiwanuka who owns about 133 acres of the forest land that was degazetted.

“He (Twinomujuni) bought about two acres of land from Sam Kiwanuka with his company M/S Aka and Bino fish farming project and obtained a permit from National Environment Management Authority to set up fish ponds that he has used to excavate sand with excavators,” he says.

According to a source residing at Kitinda and a neighbour of Twinomujuni, he has always been cutting trees at night, ferrying them to unknown destinations and started mining sand during the day.

Sources at NFA who also refuse to be quoted claim that some senior managers at the Authority have been conniving with the sand miners to get money at the expense of the trees cleared.

“We have sector and range managers at every forest reserve but the ones at Kyewaga were stopped from intervening in activities at the forest by people at headquarters saying the matter was still in court after a one Sam Kiwanuka who owned about 13.6 hectares sued the authority for stopping him from carrying on any activity,” the source says.

According to him, there was a court order stopping any person from carrying on any activity on the said land from 2010 but was concealed by NFA legal department until it was produced last month.

Daily Monitor recently obtained letters from the Lands Ministry showing that 33 hectares of the forest land has since been degazetted by then Lands Minister under instrument 63 of 1998 published in The Gazette and the land has since been changing ownership from Uganda Commercial Bank to Annet Nsubuga and lately to Sam Kiwanuka.
The letters are backed by a Court of Appeal record; “The court after considering the genesis of the respondent’s title on page 107 paragraph 3 (Supreme Court record) ascertained that 13.6 hectares of the said land have been degazetted by minister of lands”.

Elvis Kanywa, a fisherman at Kitinda says Twinomujuni extended his land to partly enter the forest land because Kiwanuka’s land known by all residents in the area is separated from the forest by a stream named Kayirira that flows into the lake.
He says, Twinomujuni on seeing the sand from his plots was over, entered the forest after reaching a consensus with two woodlot planters Berkeley Ngobi and Nathan Musensy who had a memorandum with NFA to plant trees in given plots of the forest land near Seven Kings Estate land.

“He gave them money and started clearing trees while mining sand. Some of Musensy’s sons have always been at the site counting every lorry that comes out of the reserve,” he says.

Kanywa says forestry people always come and tour the place with police but no action has been taken. “They load between 20 to 40 lorries of sand each costing between Shs300,000 to Shs500,000”.

Did Nema okay this degradation?
A source at Entebbe Police disclosed that they have been receiving reports on the illegal activities in the forest but couldn’t interfere because degraders had a permit from Nema and were creating ponds as per the Environment Impact Assessment.
They had left the activity to carry on until National Environment Management Authority Executive Director Dr Tom Davis Okurut visited the place to halt the activities.
He was on a fact finding mission to ascertain the possibility of granting an access route along the lake shore leading an Eco-white sand beach, NFA had offered to city businessman Charles Twagira and former legal assistant to President Museveni, Fox Odoi, which also is inside the Forest reserve.

On seeing the degradation, Okurut ordered for the arrest of the site manager, David Kamukama and two excavator drivers, Sam Mukhooli and Yoweri Seruga and were taken to police but the case has since stalled and the suspects are all out on police bond.
Sam Kiwanuka says he has a title on the said land and the matter is before the Supreme Court because NFA stopped him from carrying on any activity on his land.

Mr Twinomujuni, however, in a separate interview says he is only creating fish ponds for his project and was okayed by Nema. He also denied mining sand. “How can you create fish ponds without digging deep?” he asked, adding “I have bought different plots from separate individuals and have titles but have never mined sand on forest land,” he says.

Mr Twinomujuni says he has lost over Shs1b ever since Nema stalled his activities and his excavators have been vandalised. He says he is going to sue NFA, seeking damages for his properties and trespassing on his land.

He says NFA Executive Director, Joseph Mugisa has visited the place on several occasions but never called him or warned him against sand mining if the act was indeed illegal.

Twinomujuni says he has been called by NFA to open boundaries of the forest, an act he calls ridiculous because the authority cannot stop him from operating when they even don’t know the areas of their jurisdiction.

Although NFA publicist, Kaita Gonza says they stopped the activities in the forest because of the worrying degradation, sand mining in Kwewaga forest has resumed in the last two weeks rendering their efforts fruitless.

‘We have since called the necessary parties to have the forest boundary re-surveyed and re-opened to stop further degradation and save the forest reserve,” he says.
Kaita says the sand miners have become a threat to the forest resource and Lake Victoria which calls for combined efforts to halt their activities.

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