Assessing the socioeconomic impact of oil discovery among Hoima Municipality communities, Uganda

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to assess the socioeconomic impact of oil discovery among Hoima Municipality Communities in Uganda. With the following as the specific objectives to establish the effects of oil discovery to changes in prices of commodities in Hoima Municipality; to ascertain the effects of effects that result from oil exploration to food shortage of the people in Hoima municipality. The study focused on the local communities within Hoima municipality in the two divisons of Kahoora and Kaiso-Tonya respectively.

The study used a cross sectional descriptive analytical research design using quantitative and qualitative approach. The respondents comprised of both sexes but of different marital statues and age groups and the study used 50 respondents and as selected basing on a table for determining sample size by Krejcie and Morgan, 1970. Random sampling was used to select the respondents. The majority of the respondents (60.0) strongly agreed that the food commodities around the region come from within the municipality where oil discovery and exploration take place and they affirmed that there has been scarcity of food ever since exploitation began because some land which was intended for farming had to be taken up for oil exploration which caused the food prices to shoot up in the region and the chi-square tables indicated that oil discovery has led to serious impact on commodity prices and increased shortage of food in the area since some part of farming land had been scrapped off for oil production unlike increasing their incomes.

The government should ensure that there is transparency in oil exploration, that corporate social responsibility of the oil companies (e.g. building schools or health units focused exclusively on the people near the oil wells. The project structure should be formulated in such a way that the live hood in terms of better roads and infrastructural development. There is need by the government to restructure the running of the project internally directed to benefit the people of the region. There is need for government to provide land to the homeless people that were displaced as a result of the discovery and ensure they have some land necessary for agriculture to prevent the food shortage issues.