MINISTER MAYANJA ORDERS ARREST OF GOMBA TYCOON LAND GRABBER, PUSHES FOR REPLACEMENT OF COLLUDING RDC

Описание: MINISTER MAYANJA ORDERS ARREST OF GOMBA TYCOON LAND GRABBER, PUSHES FOR REPLACEMENT OF COLLUDING RDC
Minister of State for Lands Hon Sam Mayanja has ordered Police in Gomba district to arrest a local tycoon and his workers who were cited in the brutalization of local residents and mass destruction of their houses and crop gardens.
Minister Mayanja said on Wednesday, that businessman Frank Rusangana, as well as his manager, one Frank, and other workers, should be apprehended and charged for their actions which are not only illegal but also in contravention of President Yoweri Museveni’s 2013 directives on land evictions.
The Minister made these directives during a locus visit to Kamengo in Maddu sub-county, Gomba district where he met a group of locals that suffered at the hands of the tycoon.
Hanifa Nabakooza, one of the locals narrated to the minister how she had her gardens destroyed by the tycoon.
“Peter (the manager) one day brought in a gang of about 100 people including armed security officers; they found us in the garden weeding the maize and ordered us to leave,” she narrated.
Nabakooza says they decided to seek help from their RDC, Charles Lukoba Kyasanku, who told them to go back to their homes.
“On getting back we found the group still around and they chased us again. They started beating us, and they would not allow us back in our gardens,” she said.
“These people harvested our food and took it. They took all 36 bags of my maize, they ate my cassava, my sweet potatoes, and they slashed my bananas and fed them to their cows.”
The locals also pinned the RDC, Mr. Kyansanku, and a police officer one Peter Magoola for conniving with Rusangana to violently remove them from the Mailo land measuring over one square mile.
Addressing the residents, Minister Mayanja ordered for Rusangana to be arrested to face charges ranging from trespass, malicious damage of property, and threatening violence.
“I am ordering the DPC to arrest Lusanganwa, Peter Magoola, and those they worked with including the LCs,” he said.
The Minister also said he was in agreement with the resident's request for the RDC Mr Kyasanku to be transferred from Gomba.
Mayanja said when he was coming to the area, the RDC tried to dissuade him from visiting this village, and that he “painted a rosy picture” of the situation on the ground.
“I am going to write to (Minister for Presidency) Babalanda and request her to make changes here and get an RDC who can better represent the President in Gomba,” he said.