Drama as Barifa forest meeting ends in chaos

BY ANDREW COHEN AMVESI

November 11, 2022

ARUA. There was free drama at Arua Core Primary Teachers’ College (PTC) on Thursday when a stakeholders’ meeting convened to solve the Barifa central forest reserve development saga nearly turned into a physical fight.

The chaotic meeting was summoned by the officials of the National Building Review Board (NBRB) following a petition filed by Denis Lee Oguzu, the Maracha County MP, accusing Arua City Physical Planning Board of failing to approve his plan to develop Barifa forest in to an eco-tourism and recreational park.

The engagement which started in a sober mood as Eng. Flavia Bwire, the NBRB Executive Secretary schooled the different stakeholders on the roles of the Board and why the team is in Arua later turned messy when Oguzu was given a chance to address the gathering.

Some angry businessmen, elders and City Councilors in attendance couldn’t allow MP Oguzu to conclude his speech when he started mentioning names of some individuals whom he alleged had earlier attacked him verbally over the Barifa forest standoff.

Police officers were seen struggling with the said locals as they threatened to advance to Oguzu with the aim of thumping him up.

As a result, the continued plea by Sam Wadri Nyakua, the Arua City Mayor to calm down the fuming locals and allow MP Oguzu to apologize over his remarks fell on deaf ears.

The situation forced Bwire to prematurely end the meeting and asked the two parties to go back and correct their mistakes.

“Based on the tempers here, we shall skip part of the developer’s speech. So, we have agreed to go back for each of us, where we made a mistake, we go back and put it right and we come back. That is the agreement,” Bwire ruled.

The officials from Kampala and Oguzu later moved out of the meeting room under tight security before driving off towards Arua town.

When contacted for a comment shortly after the meeting, Nyakua said they have finally shifted the burden of Barifa forest to the developer.

“We have shifted the burden to the developer. You heard very clearly the Executive Secretary of NBRB saying what the Hon. Oguzu presented for eco-tourism development in Barifa forest doesn’t meet the requirements. So, it is incumbent upon him to go and do the real designs for eco-tourism and he comes back to the authority to approve it, that is all!” Nyakua said.

Meanwhile Oguzu later insisted that the plan he submitted to the city authority for approval met all the necessary requirements as prescribed by the law.

“There have been disagreements on how best we should move and these disagreements resulted in appeals which have been consecutively ruled in our favor. And the Arua City authority requested that they should present the plan and today we thought we were going to present the plan. But surprisingly, today became a culmination of incitement that started yesterday (Wednesday) by some local leaders,” Oguzu said.

“Some of the leaders indeed incited people and we saw that today when the meeting couldn’t proceed in a very organized way, denying the councilors the opportunity they could have got to ask relevant questions and really, I think that should not be how council should run. We think as representatives of the people that the councilors deserve to know the truth but there are those who were standing in the way of the truth, they didn’t want the facts to be brought out,” Oguzu added.

Oguzu maintained that the National Forestry Authority (NFA) gave him a license which was obtained through competitive bidding processes and agreements. He said the processes were cleared by the Attorney General after a Cabinet resolution that NFA should go into private partnership to utilize the central forest reserves across the country based on the management plan.