Masaka City leaders, NFA clash over Kkumbu Forest
Masaka City Mayor Ms Florence Namayanja (3rd left) and residents being blocked by police to carry out bulungi bwansi, communal work, in Kkumbu Forest Reserve on June 23. PHOTO/ANTONIO KALYANGO
What you need to know:
- Ms Agnes Namata, a resident of old Kkumbu Village, said they used to collect firewood from the forest ,but it is currently a risky place.
Leaders in Masaka City and National Forestry Authority,NFA official engaged in bitters exchange of words on June 24 over the management of the Kkumbu Forest. The forest, residents say, has become a den for thieves.
On Friday, NFA officials blocked a political team led by the Mayor Ms Florence Namayanja from conducting communal work commonly known as Bulungi Bwansi in the Kkumbu Forest.
Ms Namayanja told Monitor that their intention was not to cut down trees, but clear the thick bushes where criminals hide and waylay residents at night.
“Our decision to carry out this activity [communal work] followed continuous complaints from residents that criminals who attack them hide in the forest,” she said
Ms Namayanja was accompanied by Kimaanya-Kabonera Municipality Member of Parliament, Dr Abed Bwanika, Kabaka’s chief in Buddu County, Mr Jude Muleke, among other leaders.
The group decided to tour the forest instead to ascertain its current state.
But this too was blocked by the NFA team led by Greater Masaka sector manager Mr Robert Mubokhisa.
Mr Mubokhisa alerted security that responded with ant-riot deployment. The leaders were forcefully stopped from touring the forest and all other planned activities.
Mr Dickson Mutambuze ,the chairperson Kijjabwemi A Village ,said that NFA has failed to manage the forest and it is becoming a security threat in the area.
“Four people have been killed and their bodies dumped in the forest. Women have been raped and many other cases, we just wanted to cut down the thick shrubs which are too close to roads where criminals hide.”
Ms Agnes Namata, a resident of old Kkumbu Village, said they used to collect firewood from the forest ,but it is currently a risky place.
“We’re the ones who tasked the mayor to mobilize us for this communal service exercise. Unfortunately NFA has responded with force instead of guiding us,” she noted.
Mr Muleke ,one of the pioneers of the Masaka City communal work ,which is conducted every last weekend of the month to improve sanitation in the city told Monitor that NFA intended to block leaders from discovering that mature trees have since been cut down .
“According to what we have seen, trees inside the ecosystem are being cut down. NFA was notified, we expected it to support the process,” he said.
Mr Mubokhisa said security had to intervene because some residents wanted to take advantage of the exercise to grab some land for agriculture.
“We had to stop them because they had invaded the forest to put it down which is not allowed. We had allowed them to clear only five metres of the undergrowth vegetation on the forest edges but they defied the technical guidance,” he said.
He dismissed allegations that NFA permitted some loggers to cut down trees and said that they have endeavored to protect the forest amid a myriad of interests and threats.
Kkumbu forest is located in the heart of Masaka City on the upper edge of Nabajjuzi wetland which serves as its catchment system. It was gazetted in 1946.
Recently, during the Masaka City budget stakeholders meeting, a section of Kimaanya-Kabonera Municipality leaders petitioned the city council to sanction the clearing of the forest to create more land for industrialization, a proposal trashed by the mayor on grounds of being irrelevant.
