Muyenga Residents ATC and Local Leaders battle over Telecom Mast erection.

There was an altercation of words between the residents of Muyenga and their Local leaders with ATC officials over the erection of a mast at Stanley Sekindi Road.

The consultative meeting that took place at Yasin Omar LC1 chairman’s head offices at Muyenga on Saturday 9^th March 2024,  ended in a split after the residents including prominent businessman Godfrey Kirumira disagreed with their local leaders and ATC officials over a Mast hence promising to take their concerns to court.

According to the residents staying near the proposed area where the Mast is to be installed say that the American  Telecommunication Company (ATC)  didn’t consult those who are staying near the place where the Mast is to be installed but rather went to local leaders for approvals.

The Residents said that most of their tenants don’t want to live near Masts due to its  complications surrounding it .

Godfrey Kirumira one of the residents of Bukasa Muyenga accused the LC1 Chairperson Yasin Omar of siding with the ATC officials and being selfish. 

“You can’t tell people to leave their residence because they have not agreed to your interests, if we don’t want the mast in our area let people decide. “ says Kirumira

Kazibwe Kyambadde A resident of Muyenga said that as residents, they are not against the development of their area, but it should not take up their lives.

 “We have had a concern at the beginning and we are not against development, our concern is on the health of our people, we have children, and schools around, and having a Mast in our area is not acceptable”. Says Kyambadde

The residents raised the issues of health and how they are worried about the growing rate of cancer in the country, yet to them studies show that Masts lead to cancer.

However, the allegation of Masts leading to cancer was dismissed by Kisakye David a Medical Officer Oncologist at Mulago Hospital  said that Masts produce None Ionized radiation which isn’t harmful to humans.

 Mathew Lule, a resident and a retired  Masts operator for the past 21 years said that there is no proven fact that Masts cause cancer, a must has no pieces of equipment on it that are harmful.

What Local leaders say.

Sum Musoke Chairman Sekinde village called upon his residents to accept changes  in their locality and development since the erection of A mast  is to benefit them more and the issues of drop calls, and poor network shall all be addressed

Yasin Omar the chairperson of Bukasa Muyenga stressed his frustration over residents who don’t want development in their area saying that the installation of the Mast will improve the network issues and challenges faced by the people who now depend on digital technology

“We called up this meeting because the communication was bad in Muyenga, Uganda is now heading into the digital world, it’s a pity that most of our educated people don’t want development, as we move into the Parish Development module we need network and we can’t go analog”.he regretted 

What ATC said.

Sheila Mugisha  Head of Asset Management ATC said that the reason why they specifically chose the Stanely Sekindi area for the erection of a mast was after conducting research from crowd-sourced data, that comes from the phones, and Sekindi was the perfect spot to have a mast.

“ Ten years ago when the original sites were built it only catered for homes that had one -to two phones,  but with the increasing population and infrastructures, each home has more than four phones hence there will be competition for limited network services”. She says

Ronald Otim, an ATC engineer went further to explain the technical bit of a mast and during his presentation, he said that, When you are near a good network, it impacts you less.