President Yoweri Museveni donated the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) land at Nakasero, Kampala to Sudanese investors as part of the government’s incentive to attract investment.Apart from the land donation, the government is to spend US$6m (shs10.7b) to relocate UBC TV from Nakasero to Kololo Summit View.

The Sudanese brothers through AYA (Uganda) Ltd, are to construct a five-star hotel worth US$90m (about shs164bn) on the hill.
Several people are to be displaced including Nakasero School of Nursing and Midwifery, several offices of presidential advisers and the Departments of Information, Ethics & Integrity and that of Economic Monitoring have been sharing the UBC premises

State Minister for Information who is also the government spokesman, Dr Buturo said that if an investor is coming to put say a hotel of US$90m, you look at employment of Ugandans, tourism and modernisation, you decide to forego the value of the land in return for something bigger. Here, the benefits outweigh the costs (of relocating). He defended the deal saying the investment out-weighs the displacement costs.Buturo added: “There is no money going to be spent on relocating me from Nakasero to the former Movement Secretariat. Between US$5 to US$6m, will be spent on relocating UBC and TV to Kololo and the government is looking for the money. The Policy of the government is to put in place incentives that can attract investment. In light of this, they did not pay for that land,” Dr. Buturo admitted, confirming reports that government donated the land to AYA.

The 15-acre prime land at Nakasero has hosted the government owned TV for 43 years. It originally belonged to Buganda kingdom, sources said.

This is the second controversial hotel investment that is displacing a traditional installation in preparation for CHOGM. Shimoni Demonstration Primary School and Shimoni Teachers College are also set to be relocated after the 15.1 acres of land occupied by the two schools was awarded to a Saudi Arabian tycoon, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin AbdulAziz Alsaud.
The Saudi Prince who owns Kingdom Holdings Company, is supposed to build a five- star hotel in preparations for the 2007 Common Wealth Summit. Shimoni Demonstration School is the largest UPE School in Kampala with 3,400 pupils.

By Kisibo Jackie
Uganda Hotel News