Residents of Kabuga II in Kigali City have found themselves between a rock and a hard place after the government cancelled building of fuel storage facility on their land before compensation.

The government in 2017, earmarked their land for Worsestill project and the land owners were asked to relocate to pave the way for construction.

While Kigali City officials had not responded to our queries by press time to clarify the details of the project, residents of Cyanamo cell say they are stuck on land which they cannot develop or sell for personal use.

The law allows the government to expropriate land in public interest. Rwanda Today has learnt that the initial project Petrol tanks expansion project located at Kabuga II village was halted after changes to the City Masterplan allocated the area for residential and industrial use.

The cancellation, which was announced in May, has left the affected residents in a dilemma since they cannot develop the land.

The residents now want the government to pay them five percent of the land value in line with expropriation law.

The law however, states that fair compensation shall be paid within a period not exceeding 120 days from the day of its approval.

“Any expropriator that retracts his/her project for expropriation in the public interest after the valuation of the property of the persons to be expropriated or fails to pay fair compensation within the period provided under article 36 of this law shall be bound to pay compensation of five per cent of fair compensation that had to be paid to the person to be expropriated”.

Research by Legal Aid Forum Rwanda showed that expropriated households faced severe declines in their monthly income, and sometimes faced months of restrictions on being able to make basic improvements to their properties while expropriations were pending.

Insufficient and delayed compensation were the most pressing issues reported by both government stakeholders and expropriated households during the research.