"Govt starts resettlement study on Hoima-Buloba oil pipeline"

Uganda and Tanzania have set a deadline of 2019/2020 to have concluded the construction of the crude oil pipeline. This comes after the route from Hoima to the port of Tanga in Tanzania was adopted by the Uganda government two weeks ago. One of the issues that come with the construction of the pipeline is land acquisition and since the entire corridor in Uganda is not public land, compensation of land owners and resettlement of families will be required. The number of people and size of land required is not yet known as the Energy ministry has just started the study of land acquisition. “This will be determined by the Resettlement Action Plan Studies for the Hoima-Buloba utility corridor. Government procured a consultant, Strategic Friends International, to develop and implement the Resettlement Action Plan for the acquisition of land for this infrastructure corridor,” Mr Ibrahim Kasita, the communications specialist in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, told Daily Monitor recently.

...[The] government is currently focused on first acquiring land between Hoima and Buloba in Wakiso District. This is because priority has been an oil refinery of 60,000 barrel of oil per day capacity in Kabaale, Hoima District...The Uganda government has so far concluded the routing and environmental baseline study conducted by Danish firm, M/s Ramboll and Ugandan firm NewPlan Ltd. This study included an ariel, geotechnical and geophysical tests like soil samples and digging of test pits.