A total of 175 project-affected persons (PAPs) to be displaced have been compensated by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Company (EACOP) Ltd.
According to Martin Tiffen, Managing Director of EACOP, they have already compensated three-quarters of the 203 people affected by the project.
Tiffen said that the compensation process is still ongoing and confirmed that anyone who was affected by the project will be fully compensated.
“EACOP has already paid off three-quarters of the 203 that have been affected by the project.The process of compensating the affected persons is still ongoing until all of them have been settled,” he said.
Tiffen said that the process of paying the affected individuals in some areas was affected by the Ebola lockdown, like in Mubende District, which is one of the areas where the pipeline is expected to pass, while some have been delayed by first resolving complaints and reassessing.
“We had to also physically access all 170 villages along the pipeline, and the teams in the field will complete the exercise in the next four to five months. In some places, we encountered some challenges in either resolving grievances or doing re-evaluation and field visits. These have taken longer, and in some areas, project-affected persons have issues like the death of the head of the family, and the dependents need letters of administration. “All these have delayed us but will soon be done away with,” Tiffen added.
During the launch of the Kingfisher oil rig last week, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Ruth Nankabirwa, revealed that over 68% of the project’s affected persons have been compensated, while some housing units are near completion.
