"Strategic impact assessments should not be ignored in oil development"

Fear raced through Faith Kiiza’s body when she heard the news that the presidents of Kenya and Uganda had announced that they had agreed on a route for Uganda’s oil export pipeline…She worried for her family’s land for the pipeline would cross through her district of residence, Hoima, and she expressed her fears to her husband…[that t]heir land would be taken and they would be given insufficient compensation… Hadn’t she seen the families of Kabaale-Buseruka being given insufficient compensation when their land was taken for the refinery…?...When the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) started work on a mapping exercise for a pipeline that would transport crude oil to the Central Processing Facility in Buhuka, residents in Buhuka scampered in surprised panic…

This negative state is likely to continue disturbing local communities in the oil region for a number of infrastructural developments that will require vast amounts of land –some figures put it at one million hectares (3, 861 square miles)- are planned for the oil region. Some of these include the aforementioned export pipeline, pipelines to be built by oil companies such as Tullow and Total and those that will crisscross the country to places such as Buloba, airstrips and the refinery.

… Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) that would help government sufficiently plan for the affected people are also usually ignored to the detriment of vulnerable groups and to communities at large. Public infrastructure such as schools, health centres are lost…  In the oil sector, we see that women –who constituted the majority in the refinery area of Kabaale-Buseruka-, children, the elderly and sick, children were unplanned for because no SIA was done for the refinery area.