With all due respect to the efforts the Madhvani Group and other investors have contributed to Uganda’s development, there’s dire need to balance business interests with the socio-human-rights interests of Ugandans.
I read with dismay an article recently in one of the dailies by Madhvani when he suggested that the land they have acquired for a sugar project in Amuru district is free of inhabitants and isolated.
I don’t believe there’s idle land in Uganda, but if there is, like Madhvani suggests, and if it is held by the Government supposedly in trust of the people, then Ugandans ought to be given priority when it is being allocated.
With Uganda’s land mass estimated at 199810.00km2 and with a population of over 30 million growing at an annual rate of 3%, this land is simply never going to be enough to enable all of us live comfortably. We must explore deliberate measures to ensure equitable distribution of our land and also empower the citizens to make effective usage of the same.
If land must go anyway, can we have a middle person or institution to participate in the determination of the pay given to persons working on sugarcane farms?
Does their earning sincerely match the efforts invested and the demands on their heads?
Investment is a good thing, and even the bible encourages it in the story of the mustard seed; and many investors are good people and have done great things.
My main concern, which I so strongly believe cuts across the feelings of many; is, that there’s need for a balance between the business arm and the socio-human-rights arm. Once we strike a comfortable leverage, then of course we’ll all live in harmony, which must be the ultimate goal of both investors and the general public.
At the end of the day, whether one own millions of acres of land or none at all, we found mother land here and as it appears, we’ll all leave it behind. So if there’s no doubt that we’ll leave it anyway, why not share it equally and die peacefully why our time on earth is done? Over to you our government officials…
The writer is a media practitioner