Uganda criticized a vote from the European Union’s Parliament that demanded an end to oil pipeline project extractive activities in protected environments.
By 2025, Uganda will get all of its oil as scheduled through the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline. Leader Yoweri Museni’s remarks confirmed his resolve to see the project through.
His reaction came Friday following a resolution by the European Union’s Parliament urging the international community “to exert maximum pressure on Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities, as well as the project promoters and stakeholders,” to stop oil activities around Lake Albert.
At least 1.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil are thought to be present in Uganda. The overall investment would exceed $10 billion, according to statements made in February by TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. They collaborate with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation and the Uganda National Oil Company.
In a statement, the national assembly reaffirmed Uganda’s sovereignty and denounced the EU parliament’s action. “The resolution is based on false information and willful misrepresentation of important facts regarding the protection of the environment and human rights. It marks the height of neo-colonialism and imperialism in opposition to Tanzania’s and Uganda’s sovereignty “Thomas Tayebwa, the assembly’s deputy speaker, made the statement.
According to Kampala, oil wealth can help millions. Environmental non-profit organizations like Friends of the Earth calculated that more than 125,000 people will lose their property to the project.
Another concern was compensation. The decision was more adamant if Uganda’s civil society had already complained that the revealed compensation was unfair.
According to the report, some landowners “had their homes destroyed to facilitate the construction of access roads or the processing plant, others had all or part of their land requisitioned and lost free use of their properties and thus their means of subsistence, without prior payment of fair and adequate compensation; however, the compensation paid is often far too low to allow farmers whose land has been expropriated to buy comparable land on which to continue farming.”
Accordingly, it demanded that the government “compensate swiftly, equitably, and adequately, as provided for in the Ugandan Constitution and as promised by the corporations.” “those evicted or denied access to their land” and “people [who] lost property and land”.
The text also expressed its “grave concern about the human rights violations in Uganda and Tanzania linked to investments in fossil-fuel projects, including the wrongful imprisonment of human rights defenders, the arbitrary suspension of NGOs, arbitrary prison sentences”.
Museveni said TotalEnergies had assured him that the pipeline — which would link oil fields in western Uganda to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania — would proceed but warned on Twitter that “if the French energy group was to chose to listen to the EU Parliament, Uganda shall find another partner.”
