Demarcation for SGR route starts

Government has started demarcating the route for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to avoid encroachment.

The SGR is one of the signature government infrastructure projects that is supposed to ease the movement of goods from Mombasa to Kampala.

Its construction has delayed due to a number of factors related to financing.

The demarcation exercise began in the village of Bulafa in Namutumba district.

While speaking at the launch of the demarcation, the leader of exercise Eng. Canon Perez Wamburu noted that some project affected persons had started to come back on the land.

He however told journalists that all the projects affected persons were compensated by the government.

“To build the railway, you must acquire a corridor on which you are going to construct and the government of Uganda went ahead and acquired the corridor from the people around here and from others in Tororo, Malaba to Kampala,” he said.

He noted that the corridor was given to government under a compensation arrangement.

He said since these corridor has been bought by the government, the compensated locals don’t have any right to come back and use it.

“Once you give away the corridor, it belongs to the government of Uganda but when people come back to use it as if its theirs so, it is encroachment," Wamburu said.

He noted that the main reason for the demarcation is to ensure that these corridors are well protected from encroachment.

"We are here to ensure that we protect the corridors we have acquired from Malaba up to Kampala so that it is free from any encroachment," he said.