Robert Kasande of the Ugandan Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development has announced that compensation to those affected by the Ugandan section of the planned East African Crude Oil pipeline could reach the equivalent to $18 million.

The Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) would be responsible for paying compensation for the cost of land acquisition and resettlement of landowners as well as payments to affected households.

Robert Kasande, speaking on Uganda’s national radio network said, “I want to assure Ugandans that the government has taken the right steps, the process of compensation has just begun and we know the company will display the valuation reports to the residents before payment starts.” He also suggested that landowners would be satisfied by the level of assessed compensation and that there would also be an appeals process.

However, Dickens Kamugisha, Executive Director at the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) seemed surprised to learn that RAP had received the green light, since people who would be affected had no knowledge of the process. In actual fact, although the promoters behind the East African Crude Oil Pipeline have been carrying out property valuations along the affected route, none of the affected property owners had been informed of the assessed value of their property.