State Minister for Transport, Fred Byamukama, getting response from UCAA officials during the tour inside airfield. Photo by Sabir Musa.
By Sabir Musa
Arua

The Minister of State for Transport, Fred Byamukama has issued a 3-months ultimatum to Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) to fully compensate residents who offered land for expansion of Arua Airfield and address other concerns that may affect the project.

He declared this in a joint stakeholders meeting with officials from the aviation and Arua City Council held at the airfield to verify information regarding the Project Affected Persons. “I will come back here in August as a follow-up meeting to see what those solved issues are and those failed issues. I am also a ground-man, I will keep on even getting the number to contact you individually because we need to solve all the issues which are here, we are happy that the community is welcoming this project with two hands,” he stated.

According to records from Civil Aviation Authority, Arua has a monthly average of 180 air traffic movements, making it the second busiest domestic airport in the country after Entebbe International Airport.

As result, government prioritized the airfield for upgrading to international standard and recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with private investor, East of Eden for feasibility study.

Ayivu East Constituency Member of Parliament, Geoffrey Feta urges the authority to comply and settle the matter of compensation. “UCAA was here in May 2022 and they promised to come back in August the same year but did not and also failed to come in 2023, it forced me to write letter (to Minister). If we don’t respect this timeline, we will be shooting our foot because what caused the writing of letters is that you came with a lot of promises to people and the timelines were never respected,” the MP revealed.

However, Uganda Civil Aviation Authority’s Director General, Fred Bamwesigye, makes commitment to have the issues addressed and calls for corporation. He said, there are so many factors that enabled the decision to have Arua airfield upgraded. “We have brought in this project with good faith with all the good will necessary to have it work here, it is not that we could not buy land in other airports,” the Director General said.

Six families affected by expansion of airfield are still waiting for compensation from Civil Aviation Authority to leave the lands with some of them raising concerns about undervaluation.