100 INVESTORS LOSE NAMANVE LAND

Farmers tend to their crops on part of the land that was allocated to investors to build factories at Namanve Industrial Park in Wakiso District. PHOTO BY STEPHEN OTAGE. 

By Yasiin Mugerwa

Kampala.
Out of the 280 investors who were allocated 2,200 acres of land at Namanve Industrial Park in Wakiso District, only 28 are operational, representing only 10 per cent of the planned investments.
This has forced government to withdraw at least 107 land titles from what it called “speculative” investors.

When the Minister of State for Investment and Privatisation, Ms Evelyn Anite, visited the industrial park on Thursday, she found some beneficiaries, including government agencies, had just started construction work. Some had fenced empty sites, while others had not done anything about their industrial plots. Some of the investment plots had been turned into crop gardens.
When the minister demanded an explanation, the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) officials told her that about 107 companies, which they did not name, had lost their leases after failing to develop the allotted land within the lease period. They said another 50 companies had been put on notice.

Not yet on the ground
“About 150 companies have not commenced developments, giving excuses which are not good enough,” Mr Hamza Galiwango, the UIA land development officer, told Ms Anite.
“The new policy [introduced by UIA board] requires investors to develop the land allocated to them within 18 months with initial three years to complete the construction. This policy has affected [107] companies and 50 companies have been given notice because we have more than 200 investors waiting for land in Namanve,” he added.

This prompted Ms Anite to ask: “Did you give land to speculators or were these genuine investors but failed to put up factories on the land because of certain reasons? As government, we need answers because this is Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo, [this is a new tenure of no excuses] and our focus is on attracting investments and creating one million jobs by 2021.”
The UIA officials led by Mr Lawrence Byensi, the director for Investment Facilitation and Aftercare, however, replied that not all the 280 investors got the land in 2011 and that lack of infrastructure such as tarmacked roads, electricity, water and sewerage system and the incessant flooding in the park had discouraged the investors.
He said two companies have even stopped construction due to poor road network.
Ms Anite told Saturday Monitor that Shs500 billion is required to fix the infrastructure requirements in the Namanve Industrial Park.
“We are targeting 44km of tarmac in the park, stable Internet (fibre optic), sewarage system, piped bulk industrial water and high power voltage lines (132KV and 33KV), power substation and solid waste management. We want a functional park and by February next year, everything must be in place,” Ms Anite said.
With 28 companies in operation and 102 having commenced construction, Ms Anite said 11,000 Ugandans are currently employed within the park and an additional 17,000 in indirect short term contracts or technical jobs during the construction period. She said 150 companies are still clearing their investment paper work.
Ms Anite tasked UIA officials to give her a list of companies whose leases have been revoked and the dates when they were allocated the land in question. She also demanded a full list of 280 beneficiaries of Namanve investment land, detailing who got what, when and for what purpose.
Working projects
Some of the operational projects in the park include Roofings Ltd, FOL Logistics, Kyagalanyi Coffee, Steel and Tube Industries, Comesa-Namanve Industries, Orion Transformers, Interior Technologies, Valley View Estates, Saba Gifco, Opit Investments Ltd, Victoria Seeds, Century Bottling (Coca Cola), Sunbelt Industries, Three Ways Shipping, Kingstone Enterprises, Diamand Trust Bank, Roke Telecom, Hanson Eastern Investments, Leaf Tobacco, among others. 
SOURCE: DAILY MONITOR