Nakawa-Naguru tenants evicted

Jul 05, 2011

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By Vision Reporters

EVICTION of 1,750 families from Nakawa-Naguru estates, which started yesterday, continues today with Kampala City Council Authority bulldozers and law enforcement officers demolishing the condemned housing units.

The occupants had been given June 30 as the eviction deadline, but remained adamant through the weekend.

The eviction, which is to last three days, is meant to pave way for the redevelopment of the estate into a satellite town by Opec Prime Properties Limited, a UK-based construction firm.

Panic ensued as KCCA law enforcement agents and heavily armed Police led by Kampala metropolitan commander, Grace Turyagumanawe, moved in to enforce the eviction.



The residents, who had earlier refused to leave, saying they did not have a place to go to, hurriedly threw their property out of the houses as the bulldozers began razing them down.

A total 67 housing units had been demolished by the end of yesterday.

The Nakawa-Naguru redevelopment project engineer, Andrew Kizza, said there would be no compensation to the residents since they had not been paying rent for the last seven years and were asked to take whatever they wanted from their houses.

“They were allowed to take whatever they wanted, including doors, windows and roofing sheets. They have not paid rent for the last seven years and that was the compensation. There is no point in compensating the people who would get better houses at a subsidized price after completion of the project, ” he added.

Each tenant, he said, would be entitled to a self-contained apartment with three rooms on the flats that would be built.

“The developer is going to have a number of projects. We are also going to build flats that will accommodate more people than these estates. There is no cause to worry since the evicted persons would be free to occupy the new flats that the government is to construct in two years.” Kizza added

Before the demolition exercise started, KCCA and local government ministry officials began erecting a fence on the 66-hectare estate.

Naguru housing estate had 753 housing units, while Nakawa had 932 units.

When completed, the estate will have 1,747 flats and related amenities for low-income earners.

Kizza added that modern residential, commercial, institutional and hospitality units are to be built for the next 10 years and are projected to create 30,000 jobs.

A handful of the evictees are remaining in the ruins of the estate, saying they did not have money to rent new houses, but the Police warned that any trespasser would be arrested.

Some people claimed that they had just come to the estate after paying rent to the original tenants who left after signing a memorandum of understanding with the Government to leave.

The memorandum would give tenants first priority to purchase the re-developed flats at a subsidised price, but some have sold their rights.

Kampala City Council (KCC) now KCCA condemned the Nakawa-Naguru housing estates in 2001.

They had been earlier condemned in 1994 by the health ministry as unfit for human habitation.

Comprising small houses, the estate was built by the British colonial administration in the 1950s.

In 2003, the estate was tendered for redevelopment and the Government in 2007 signed a contract with Opec Prime Properties to re-develop the land into a modern satellite town at $300m, including the construction of low-cost houses for the resettlement of the tenants.

But the implementation of the project has hitherto been on hold due to disputes.


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