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32 NEW VISION, Friday, May 1, 2015

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By Owen Wagabaza

Just two months ago, Nakudi

in Namayingo district was a
quiet village, with its people
engaging in agriculture and
fishing as the main livelihood.
That was until Robert Ojambo
died after a long illness. All
was going well during the
funeral until mourners started
digging the grave.
In their first attempt, they
came across rocks they
believed to be gold. They
closed the grave and dug
another one, which also had.
They had to dig another grave
where, Ojambo was finally laid
to rest.
After Ojambos burial, two
men packed all the rocks
from the abandoned graves
and took them to extract gold.
One of the men got gold worth
sh1.5m and another made
sh2.3m. That caused quite
some excitement.
Caught off-guard
News of the discovery spread
like wildfire. By the next
morning, people from near and
far had descended on Nakudi
to make a quick buck. They
started surveying the place.
One of the places though to
have much gold was Wandera
Omukemos land.
People gathered at his home
and started offering him lots
of money for plots. However,
Wandera did not know how
to go about it. Before he knew
it, people were fighting for
plots on his land. Confused,
Wandera ran away and hid
in the garden, but the people
did not relent. They picked
him from his hiding place and
requested him to sell them
plots. With so much money at
his disposal, Wandera obliged
and started selling the plots,
says Onyango Ombooto, the
LC1 chairman of the area.
Wandera has since deserted
his village after selling all his
land, including the house,
which was razed down. He
sold his home to an Indian at
sh100m. He is now renting in
the nearby centre, Ombooto
alleges.
Changed outlook
Once a quiet village of peasant
farmers
and
fishermen,
covered with grass-thatched
huts, cassava and maize
gardens, Nakudi has changed
in a blink of an eye. The village
is now a beehive of activity.
The population explosion
came with its challenges.
As of now, the larger part
of Nakudi is filled with
temporary structures made
of canvas sheets and wood.
There are entertainment halls
connected to digital television,
lodges,
restaurants,
bars,
clinics, shops, areas of worship,
including a mosque, and tens
of abandoned deep open pits,
a glaring reminder of how risky
this business can be.

FEATURE

Namayingo graves that

turned into gold mines

Formerly a quiet shing and farming village, Nakudi is now a mini town, with such makeshift structures. Photos by Owen Wagabaza
According to Ombooto,
people from all corners of
the country have camped in
Nakudi. We have people from
Mubende, Kampala, Iganga,
Jinja, Soroti, Kayunga, Busia
and so many other parts. In
total, over 30,000 people have
come here to mine gold,
Ombooto says.
Dunstan Mukabya from
Mubende, says it is Kampala
Capital City Authoritys (KCCA)
policies that forced him into
mining. I was running a
kiosk in Kampala and life was
good, but KCCA razed down
my kiosk and I had to look
for other ways to survive. The
mining business is profitable
but risky. You can invest your
money into a pit and fail to get
any trace of gold there, yet on
a good day you can get gold
worth as much as sh5m. This
business is more of a gamble,
Mukabya says.
A raw deal
Egladesi Tabu, the owner of
the land where gold was first
seen, says she received only
sh20,000 from the miners.
They dug pits in my
compound and backyard and
went with the soil for refining.
Though they got lots of money,
I have never got anything from
them, Tabu says as she shows
her compound full of glaring
open pits, and heaps of soil.
Ombooto,
says
despite
the trade boom in Nakudi,
natives have not registered any
financial gain.
Starting a business here
requires at least sh200,000,

involves the use of mercury

during the washing of the gold,
putting the miners health and
community around at the risk
of health complications.
According to the World
Health Organisation, the effects
of mercury are generational,
with children and women of
childbearing age being the
most vulnerable as mercury
can be passed from mother to
unborn child.
Dr. Moses Agaba in Mulago
Hospital, says mercury is a
chemical of global concern
due to its ability to travel long
distances in the atmosphere.

Miners sorting out stones from which gold is extracted.

which villagers dont have. The
labour in the mines is being
offered by those people who
came from other mines like
Mubende and Busia. But for
us in Nakudi, we have not got
anything, Ombooto says.
Apart
from
that,
the
population
explosion
in
Nakudi has strained the social
services in the area.
We have only three Police
officers who are also digging
gold, hence not giving their
job priority. We dont have
water and the mining area has
only two toilets, forcing miners
to defecate in the open. The
hygiene in the area is poor;
we are at risk of a cholera
outbreak, Paskari Rwabwiire,
a resident, says.

A distorted homestead in Nakudi village

HEALTH ALERT
Mercury is persistent
for when exposed
into the environment,
it can accumulate
in the ecosystem,
including fish. It has
significantly negative
effects on both
human health and the
environment
Environmental
In Nakudi, the miners rely
on experience and intuition
to explore gold. They lack the
necessary equipment in gold
exploration, with the most
advanced piece of technology

being the drilling machine

which they locally call makita.
Because the equipment
required
in
exploration
is expensive, we end up
using manual labour, Salim
Rugambwa, a miner,says.
The
process
involves
purchasing a small plot of land,
workers to dig a pit, create a
tunnel and start looking for
gold.
You dig after gold-coloured
stripes in a rock, the more gold
colour the stripes have, the
higher the chances of finding
gold, Rugambwa explains.
Health hazard
Apart from inhaling lots of
dust that causes respiratory
problems, the refining process

Egladesi kneeling on Tabus grave. Behind her is one of

the empty graves where gold was found

Taxes not regulated

Authorities continue to turn
a blind eye to what has
been described as Ugandas
gold rush. Ugandas natural
resources are being extracted
by artisan gold miners who are
unregulated. Those who are
mining and selling the gold
are not being taxed and the
government is not benefiting,
experts say.
With over 200,000 people
involved in mining directly
and indirectly, the amount of
gold mined annually cannot
be quantified, since there are
no official records. It could be
in thousands of kilogrammes,
and that is a huge loss to
the Government in terms of
taxes, Arnold Byaruhanga, a
development expert, says.
Uganda has three major
mining
districts;
Busia,
Namayingo and Mubende.
According to Elly Karuhanga,
the chairman of the Ugandan
Chamber of Mines and
Petroleum,
if
mineral
exploration is not handled well,
it could result in environmental
degradation and loss of life,
just like it has done in other
mineral-rich nations.
We have a gold rush in
eastern Uganda and central
Uganda. If we are not careful,
there will be bad effect in
Uganda like there was in
South Africa. Left unregulated,
crude methods used to dig
gold are an accident waiting to
happen, he said.