KAMPALAS GOLF COURSE UNDER THREAT BY DEVELOPERS
Alarming news spread through the golfing fraternity yesterday when developers a byword nowadays for greedy and often destructive assaults on green open spaces across the city, fenced off a portion of the Kitante Golf Club in the heart of the city. Owned by the Uganda Golf Union the course is one of the few remaining green lungs of the city, which over the past two decades have been decimated and often turned into unsightly assemblies of makeshift and ramshackle looking shops and restaurants mostly seen at the former Centenary Park or shopping malls like Garden City and Oasis, with the name garden a mere window dressing. Earlier in the week it was revealed by the media that another sports ground in Lugogo, equally under assault by developers in recent years, was being hived off, leaving sports fans in seething anger over broken promises by the Kampala City Council, which as usual feints ignorance and pleads innocence.
Members of the club have already mobilized, amongst them some of Ugandas most influential business people and politicians, to call for an extraordinary general meeting to establish the legal foundation under which the 12th hole of the 18 hole course is being fenced off, and the mood has turned ugly already with comments flying that members want heads to roll of those eventually found responsible for carving up our golf course.
Uganda has a checkered history as far as such cases are concerned, with other developers, allegedly conniving with officials, having their eyes set on the Nakivubo Stadium in the heart of Kampala as well as sports grounds around the country, as reported last year about similar moves in Soroti where attempts were eventually stopped to carve out land from the East African Aviation Academy as well as the towns golf course, where individuals conspired to grab land.
Said one avid golfer to this correspondent, after being reminded to let the law take its course: What law, the law is an ass but we shall expose those behind because some of our members have the means to get to the bottom of this atrocity and those responsible will be publicly named, shamed and shunned by us. Oooops comes to mind.
