NFA got raw deal out of Mabira logs

Jan 15, 2012

The investor given a concession to cut trees on five hectares of Mabira Forest has paid sh108m, which some forestry experts consider as an under-value.

By Gerald Tenywa  

The investor given a concession to cut trees on five hectares of Mabira Forest has paid sh108m, which some forestry experts consider as an under-value.

Whereas the current market value of timber per cubic metre ranges from sh100,000 for round wood to sh150,000 for pine and sh300,000 for mahogany, a mixture of Mabira tree species were sold for sh90,000 per cubic metre.

According to John Diribo, the Manager of Mabira, NFA gave a concession to Fred Tumusiime, a private investor, to harvest eucalyptus, pines, agathis robusta, araucaria and mahogany that were standing on five hectares at Nagojje.

The trees, which were planted in the 1960s, were allocated to the investor after paying sh108m to NFA.

While visiting the forest on Monday, the environment state minister, Flavia Munaba, queried whether that was the best deal NFA could have got. It was then that she learnt that the concession had been given without competitive bidding.

“In your view, could this be the best deal that NFA got out of selling the trees at Nagojje? Flavia Nabugere Munaba asked Diribo. “We need to review some of these things because the Government is not getting a fair deal.

Diribo told the minister that a team of inventory experts was sent in to determine the volume of the trees and that after their assessments, they came up with 1,211.98 cubic meters as the total volume of the trees in five hectares. He said some of the trees had over matured and had become hollow.

He later explained that the trees could not be sold at the current rates of round wood because they had defects. “What we were dealing with were not prime logs. Some of the logs were hollow and also had defections,” said Diribo.

Other sources said the actual volume of timber in the area could have been much higher than the 1,211.98 cubic metres estimated by NFA. A fully grown tree of 25-30 years can produce up to 1.5 cubic metres and five hectares can produce up to 5,000 such trees, implying that five hectares can potentially produce 7,500 cubic metres of timber.

However, NFA officials explained that some of the trees were rotten. The communities around the forest complained that they should have been given first priority to buy the trees.

“We were supposed to be the first beneficiaries,” said Ngondwe Lubega, the head of Nagojje Community Biodiversity Association.

“Private investors should have come in after failure by the local people to buy the trees.”

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});