Dear Councilors
When people are elected they enter into a contract or understanding to protect, defend, promote the interests of the people they represent and improve their standard of living. One of the terms of the contract is that consultations between representatives and constituents should take place regularly particularly on issues like land on which the majority depend for their livelihood.
Converting Rukungiri Township into a Municipality by incorporating rural areas has serious adverse implications. Once the municipality law enters into force in January 2011 the land affected will be owned by municipal authority and owners will automatically become tenants subject to terms and conditions set by the municipal authority.
Because most peasants are poor, they will not be able to pay land taxes and other charges or meet standards such as construction using bricks. Failure to meet municipality terms and conditions will result in tenants either selling their land at giveaway prices or their land will be confiscated for failure to meet the terms and conditions. The dispossessed families will automatically become landless. Since most peasants are totally or functionally illiterate, they will not find work elsewhere. They will become penniless as well.
To make ends meet landless and poor people will engage in crimes, will get jailed and languish in prisons missing the opportunity to reproduce. Poverty and its offshoots of hunger and malnutrition, disease and the desire to make ends meet will expose them to dangers such as HIV that will increase their mortality rate and affect them in many other ways that will reduce their population size. Third, the people affected will experience severe mental distress.
Elected representatives are not expected to produce these outcomes. Surely this is not the legacy you want to be remembered by.
The decision must be reversed because procedures were not followed at district and parliament levels. Alternatively, the municipality could be termed a constituency to meet political demands so household retain land ownership on which they depend for their livelihood.
Sincerely,
Eric Kashambuzi