David Sserukenya the Makindye Ssabagambo Member of Parliament has exclusively revealed to this website that it was the phone call of the deputy speaker of parliament Thomas Tayebwa that saved hundreds of his residents from being evicted by the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) early this week.
Sserukenya revealed that early in the morning, when he received a phone calls from his voters in the areas of Kibiri A and Buggu villages concerning NEMA’s plan to evict them, he immediately made phone calls to Dr Barirega Akankwasah the NEMA Executive Director to halt the operation to give the affected persons an opportunity to leave without losing their properties but the NEMA boss declined and his staff, protected by the army and police proceeded with the eviction.
“I had nothing to do apart from rushing to my bosses in parliament to help me. I pleaded with the deputy speaker Tayebwa who made a phone call to Akankwansa to halt the operation and it was done and I’m thankful to him,” he said.
Sserukenya was at the NEMA head offices along Kampala-Jinja road with the affected victims together with their lawyers led by Yasin Ssentumbwe Munnagomba who pleaded with NEMA’s Appeals Tribunal to suspend the operations since his clients had filed several court cases at the High Court Civil Division and in the East African Court of Justices in Arusha Tanzania.
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“We have filed applications in the High Court seeking for a temporary and interim injunctions stopping NEMA from illegally evicting my clients from their land and we have served NEMA’s legal department.
Unfortunately, in both applications, government lawyers working here and paid by the taxpayers money refused to respond to our application and we are asking the presiding judge Douglas Singiza to rule in our favour and save my vulnerable clients,” Ssentumbwe said.
He added that his clients are very disappointed with Justice Singiza because they filed their two applications two months back and pleaded with him that they are in danger and urgently need court protection but he told them that he will issue the order after visiting the locus to establish the truth behind what they were telling him.
They assert that up to now he has never visited the places yet he has already been appointed the chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission.
He added that his clients have been staying in the said wetlands for decades and have invested a lot of money to develop the land.
They were shocked to learn that NEMA gazetted their land as a wetland and to prove them wrong, they hired the experts of Strategic Sustainable Consults Limited which is one of the leading consultancy firm that specializes in Environmental and Social Impact assessment and is registered with NEMA to determine whether the activities being done there affect the environment.
He added that when they received the summons from NEMA informing them that they are going to be evicted from their land on October 2024, they appealed to NEMA’s appeals tribunal as the law states.
They claim that they were given 12th March 2025 as the date to hear their appeal but were surprised that the operation was carried out before their appeal was heard.
“When I was told that NEMA’s staff were on the way coming to evict my clients, I engaged Akankwasah and told him that what he was going to do was against the law. I pleaded with him to wait until the courts of law and NEMA’s appeals tribunal determine their fate. He personally reached the site and arrogantly ordered the operation to start with houses of my clients who appealed to his tribunal,” Ssentumbwe added.
The tribunal promised to give its decision before the end of Thursday this week but this website has established that Akankwasah’s Security has been beefed up and he is currently protected by Special Forces Command (SFC) Commandos.
Even the security at the authority headquarters has been also beefed up and it was a painful struggle for residents of Ssabagabo to be allowed to enter and attend the hearing at the tribunal after riot police were heavily deployed at the entire premises.
