Government to resettle over 5,000 encroachers on Mt Elgon National Park land

Elgon, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Prime Minister’s office is going to resettle people from eight districts living and working within Mt Elgon national park.

According to Fredrick Kizza, the manager of Uganda Wildlife Authority in Eastern and Karamoja region, over 5,000 people have constructed houses in Mt Elgon National Park land while others use parkland for grazing and cultivation.

Now Prime Minister Robina Nabbanja has directed stakeholders, political leaders and security officials from Bugisu and Sebei regions to look for ways of saving Mt Elgon national park which has been encroached by the people.

Before commencing the meeting, Nabbanja toured Mt Elgon National Park using a helicopter to see the magnitude of encroachment. She was accompanied by Minister of Tourism Tom Butime, Minister of Water and Environment Sam Cheptoris, Local Government Minister Raphael Magezi, and Karamoja Affairs minister Agnes Nandutu.

According to the prime minister, locals neighboring Mt Elgon National park in districts like Bukwo, Sironko, Namisindwa and Mbale have constructed houses and are carrying out farming beyond gazetted boundaries, and are going to be resettled somewhere or given money to go away.

Nabbanja also says that she is going to continue holding meetings with stakeholders and leaders from the two regions to see an end to these encroachments.

Tom Butime, the minister of tourism also says if they leave those encroachers, the park is going to disapear completely in a few years coming, and the encroaches are at risk of being buried alive by mudslides when it rains.

Sam Cheptoris, the minister for water and environment says they are to re-gazette the boundaries of the national parks in the two regions and will dig a deeper wide trench as the boundary along the national parkland while people there will be given tree seedlings to plant forests neighboring the park.

John Musila, the MP for Bubulo East constituency in Namisindwa district says that people are confused with the three boundaries that were re-drown by the government, but have not intentionally chosen to encroach on the parkland.   He adds that people living in the park are on the land of their grandparents which is hard to vacate but urged the government to give them money and look for land somewhere else.

Isaac Modoi, MP for Lutekhe County from Bududa district also says that the government has talked about the issue of resettling people living in the park for now over 20 years but no action has been taken. He urged the prime minister this time to be serious and resettle affected people once and for all so that they can leave freely and willingly.

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