By Mercy Agumenaitwe,
NATIONAL
A family in Mpigi District in Buganda Kingdom has been awarded Sh4.6m inexchange for the cutting down of the clan’s sacred tree to pave way for the construction of the Mpigi Expressway.
This followed an incident where Hussein Katamba, the owner of the land on which the tree is found sued the Uganda National Roads Authority for attempting to fell down a tree in Mpigi believed to be a homeof their clan spirits.
The claimant was seeking for Sh500m compensation for a purported sacred tree.
However, court has ruled in favour of UNRA and ordered that Katamba should instead get the Shs4.6m that UNRA initially offered for his 0.083-acre piece of land on which the tree is found.
Construction works at the Mpigi Expressway had been brought to stall due to the compensation demands of the claimant who insisted that the Sh500m will appease their clan spirits before the tree is cut down
Allan Ssempebwa, the UNRA Public Relations Officer has told reports that the authority challenged the claims in coury which granted that compensation should be done to claimant for Kibanja (land) but not as a cultural site.
“We have successfully defended the matter in Court and court has granted that we only compensate the claimant for kibanja and not as a cultural site”, said Ssempebwa.
According to court, the site is not a gazetted cultural site and therefore, Shs500 million compensation was unjustifiable.
The 23.7km project worth 540b started in May 2020 and was expected to be complete in May this year. This however is likely to fail because the construction works currently stand at only 15 percent.
