KCCA, land board fights suffocate city council of funds

An aerial view of Kampala City. Fights between the city authority and the land board has seen the city council lose lots of money. FILE PHOTO

Just when everyone thought the feud between Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and Kampala District Land Board (KDLB) over control of the city public land had ceased, new details show the battle still rages on.

The new feud comes barely five years since KCCA and KDLB clashed over the same, following the demand by the former’s executive director, Ms Jennifer Musisi, to have the operations of the latter disbanded.

Sunday Monitor has learnt that although court in 2012 blocked KCCA from disbanding KDLB, it has continued to query its operations, resulting into clashes.

The latest clash follows a litigation report from KCCA’s legal directorate dated August 9, a copy of which Sunday Monitor has seen, which contains Ms Musisi’s letters, who queried the operations of KDLB.

In one of her letters to KDLB chairperson, Mr Yusuf Nsibambi, dated February 9, Ms Musisi accuses the board of causing financial losses to KCCA by allocating land to more than one party, which then ends up in court, hence compensations.

Musisi’s argument
Ms Musisi contends that following a recent review of the court cases, to which KDLB was a party, it was found out that majority of them relate to situations where the board acted adversely to the interests of an existing leaseholder and proceeded to allocate the same parcel of land to a third part or several others.

In the same letter, she notes that KCCA will lose at least Shs5.3b as compensation to the affected clients, a loss she blames on KDBL for their alleged failure to carry out due diligence before allocating land.

“...from the foregoing, it is self-evident that certain unfortunate errors by KDLB have had very adverse consequences on the revenues of KCCA. The financial burden that KCCA must now shoulder from the actions and omissions of the land board is so enormous,” Ms Musisi says in her letter.

She adds: “There is also good reason to believe that many of the pending cases against KDLB shall visit further financial exposure upon the Authority since the allegations against the Board in these cases largely relate to double-allocations”.

Ms Musisi argues that the state of affairs is certainly most undesirable, especially in the present circumstances where KCCA’s resource envelope has dwindled due to budgetary cuts.

The Land Act Cap 227, states that the liabilities accruing against the land board from its actions or omissions are borne by the city administration. However, all the money collected by KDLB goes to the accounts of KCCA.

One such example is a matter where in May 2011, Zhang Group of companies applied for a lease from KDLB for 15 years for land located at Plot 29 Hill lane, in Kololo.

According to documents, Zhang Group paid a premium of Shs173,625,120 and ground rent of Shs13,890,000 and a certificate of title was created in favour of the applicant.

However, Zhang Group was denied access to the property by Uganda People’s Defence Forces, which is in occupation of the same land to date.

It was also later discovered that the land was actually not available for allocation since there was freehold title in favour of Uganda Telecom Ltd.

Consequently, judgment was entered against the board thus; special damages of Shs191,339,883, general damages of Shs30m and costs of Shs14,476,876.

Mr Nsibambi, in an interview with Sunday Monitor, however, scoffed at Ms Musisi, saying she is the one who instead should be blamed for the losses because of her interference in the operations of KDLB.

He noted that KCCA can’t run away from the losses which accrue from the double allocation of land because KDLB offers the lease after the KCCA team, including surveyors and physical planners, have cleared it of any encumbrances.

“Ms Musisi has no right whatsoever to question our operations because the losses she refers to are actually caused by the KCCA team, which she supervises. KCCA has physical planners and surveyors, who must clear any land before we offer any lease and the double allocation can’t be our fault as a board because it’s her workers who have failed to play their role,” he said.
Mr Nsibambi also says since Ms Musisi lost the battle to control Kampala land in 2012, she now wants to “impress” the public by punching holes in the operations of the land board, yet it’s her own employees who continue to frustrate it.

“For instance, she disbanded some of our board members who would be doing the verification exercise. Also, there is no any databank to track all the records of both the occupied and free land in the city. We are understaffed and not even facilitated, and we have always reminded her of these challenges,” he said.

Mr Nsibambi also alleges that there is collusion between KCCA workers and some complainants, where some sensitive documents that could have served as evidence are hidden, and when the matter goes to court, it is handled instantly, hence some workers sharing the compensation with the complainant, a claim which Sunday Monitor couldn’t verify.

Challenges
He reveals that during their appearance before Parliament recently, he reported to MPs how the board continues to operate amidst intrigue from KCCA, which he blames on Ms Musisi.

Efforts to speak to Ms Musisi to respond to Mr Nsibambi’s allegations were futile as she couldn’t be reached by press time. We also failed to reach the KCCA spokesperson, Mr Peter Kaujju.

Sunday Monitor has learnt that KCCA recently gave a double cabin pick-up truck to KDLB to help them in the execution of their operations. KCCA also recently advertised some positions to fill up the board.

However, some people accuse KDLB of being ‘irresponsible’ while executing their duties hence the enormous losses.
Ms Sarah Kanyike, the deputy Kampala Lord Mayor, acknowledged receipt of the report and said they would have a meeting with members of KDLB this week to ascertain how the losses accrue.
“I am tempted to believe that the double allocation of land happens because the land board doesn’t keep records for verification purposes. Such loses affect us as an institution, but when we meet them, we shall get to know how these losses come,” she said.

A member of the land board, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, told this newspaper that the losses from double allocation of land could even be Shs20b. But she blamed this on the poor working relationship between the board and KCCA.

In October, Kampala Minister Beti Kamya, flanked by State House Comptroller Lucy Nakyobe, Mr Nsibambi and some KCCA officials, revealed that the available land in the city would be used to start up projects that would empower the youth.

Kampala city is synonymous with cases of land grabbing, especially by the rich and well-connected people in the security circles. For instance, some city schools’ land has been grabbed, leaving learners under suspense.

This newspaper understands that KCCA has embarked on a fight to save schools’ land in the city by processing their land titles that would shield away land grabbers.

There has always been a concern, especially from the political wing, as to how the institution loses nearly all cases in court and opts for either mediation or pay without even running to the Court of Appeal.

According to the ministerial statement for Financial Year 2017/2018, a copy of which Sunday Monitor has seen, one of the major challenges still facing KCCA is the accumulated compensations estimated at more than Shs40b arising from various suits filed against KCCA.
“…more judgments are expected in a number of cases and continuously distress our meagre resources,” Ms Kamya noted in the statement.

In the same statement, the minister also revealed that KCCA made a contingent liability of Shs100b in respect of legal cases in the financial statement for 2015/16, but without indicating a list of the cases lost.

This debt, coupled with other losses, the political wing fears it’s likely to affect the service delivery in the city, yet their budgetary allocation has since been slashed.

For instance, although KCCA had requested for at least Shs1 trillion in the current budget (2017/18), they were given only Shs337b, leaving them grappling with many funding gaps.
Mr Kennedy Okello, the KCCA councillor representing Nakawa I, said the Authority must probe all the losses caused by KDLB to mitigate further liabilities.

But in small cases against the institution, Mr Okello said they can always opt for mediation to reduce the court costs.

Ms Kamya, acknowledged the stalemate over city land but she said: “I will study the matter and then take action”.

In 2012, there was a battle between KCCA and KDLB over management of public land in Kampala city. Ms Musisi had argued that all public land in Kampala should be managed by KCCA, an idea Mr Nsibambi vehemently rejected.

In April 2012, Ms Jennifer Kaggwa, the then KCCA director of human resource, sacked the secretary of KDLB, Ms Sarah Kusima, and replaced her with Ms Diana Nambi.

Tension escalated at City Hall, which saw KDLB offices being sealed off by police to pave way for investigations into the operations of the board.

Mr Nsibambi then alleged that he was being fought because he had refused to surrender 15 plots of prime city land to land grabbers, who had wanted to use KCCA to acquire them.

The law
Institutional powers. According to Article 241(2) of the Constitution, a district land board shall be independent of the Uganda Land Commission and shall not be subject to the directives of any person or authority, but shall take in account the national and district council policy on land.

In May 2012, the Solicitor General advised that since Kampala ceased to be a district under the Local Government system but an authority under the central government, KDLB should be disbanded and all their powers to manage the city land be transferred to the Uganda Lands Commission.

But KDLB chairperson Yusuf Nsibambi argued that to disband KDLB, it would require an amendment of the Constitution first. Mr Nasser Kiingi and Winnie Kalyesubula later petitioned court as concerned citizens and Justice Stephen Kavuma, now retired, blocked KCCA from disbanding the land board.