Amuru risks losing seed school to encroachers

Amuru, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  Amuru District risks losing Amuru Town Council Seed Secondary School after the community encroached on the school land.   

The seed school was allocated part of an 80-acre piece of land by the family of one Ludongo in the 1980s to establish Lokung Primary School in Amuru town council.

Currently, Amuru town council has no government secondary school. 

Richard Komakech, the Amuru Town Council LCIII Chairman says that some families have encroached on part of the land.

Komakech notes that they have held several meetings with the encroachers and told them to vacate to pave way for the construction of the school, in vain.  

According to Komakech, last week, a team of engineers from the Ministry of Education visited the proposed site and were concerned about the continuous farming activities on the land. 

He adds that the officials from the Ministry of Education have now tasked them to produce a written agreement between the school and the neighbours indicating that the encroached land belongs to the school or else construction which was planned to start this financial year will not commence.     

Michael Lakony, Amuru LCV Chairperson says the community members took advantage of the absence of learning during the COVID-19 Lock-down to encroach on the land for cultivation.

Lakony says, at the time of the visit by officials from the education ministry, almost three-quarters of the land had been cleared.

According to Lakony, the government already allocated 900 million shillings towards the construction of the seed school.    

Denis Opio a neighbour of the school says some of the community members were forced to encroach on the school land due to limited land for cultivation.

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URN