My land has been taken to make way for Uganda’s oil pipeline — is this what’s meant by ‘economic upliftment’?

From November 6 to 18 2022, the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties 27 — COP27 — will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. All indicators point to the fact that African governments are positioning themselves to demand that African countries are allowed to exploit their coal, oil and gas resources. African leaders claim that Africa needs to address energy poverty and promote socioeconomic development, hence the need for the continent to exploit its coal, oil and gas resources.

It should be noted that corporations such as South Africa’s Standard Bank have also refused to rule out financing of oil and gas activities because they say that Africa needs to exploit these resources to address energy poverty and promote economic transformation.

However, as a project-affected person in Uganda whose land is being acquired for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) project, I wonder whose socioeconomic transformation these corporations and governments speak about.

I live in Hoima district in western Uganda, where the country’s oil and gas resources are concentrated. About 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day at peak production will be produced from oil fields in western Uganda. Some 216,000 barrels of this oil will be exported via the Eacop at peak production per day.

To develop the Eacop, land is being acquired from over 3,000 households in Uganda. I head one of these households. In 2018, I was informed by TotalEnergies, which is one of the developers of the Eacop project, that my land was going to be acquired for the Eacop.

In June 2019, TotalEnergies informed my family and others whose land was being taken for the Eacop project in Western Uganda that a cut-off date had been placed on our property. We were told not to use our land to grow perennial crops including cassava and others. Cassava is both a staple food and a cash crop for us.