Museveni gives away Makerere prime land

President Museveni has directed that prime land belonging to Makerere University in Kololo, an upscale city suburb, be given to a Lebanese investor to erect a five-star hotel.

The university says the land was obtained fraudulently and still belongs to it but Mr Museveni says the hotel project will create jobs and should go ahead.
The investor, Mr Nassour Ramez, says he bought the land from one Janice Amayo at $3.5 million (Shs8b) last December.

But police, he said, three months later barred him from fencing off the plots, 34 and 36A on Prince Charles Drive as he began construction works on what he claims is a $17 million (Shs39b) hotel.

The police acted after Makerere University revealed that it owns the 1.3 hectare piece of land and has never sold it. Mr Ramez then took his case before the President who wrote on September 1, directing police chief Kale Kayihura to ensure the investor “gets vacant possession of his land” to go ahead with the project.

“The people of Uganda need these projects for job creation, tax revenue [and] service delivery,” Mr Museveni wrote, “Investment projects of this nature should not be bogged down unless there is evidence that the investor colluded in clear ways with the fraudsters.”

Fraud claims
Officials at Makerere University, however, say the transaction was fraudulent and have challenged Mr Ramez to prove his innocence in the matter. The officials have denied knowledge of the said Ms Amayo and say they did not receive any money for the land. They also question how the lease allegedly held by Ms Amayo on the land – a lease that the university says it is unaware of – was transferred into Mr Ramez’ names.

Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba, the university vice chancellor, wrote to Mr Ramez on November 1, with a copy to the police, asking them to investigate the link between the investor and Ms Amayo, and why they excluded Makerere University while undertaking the transactions.

In the letter, Prof. Baryamureeba said: “Information from the Land Registry indicate that the said Makerere University land on plots 34A and 36A was leased on December 24 at 10:30am to Amayo Janice and transferred to you within a record five minutes; that is 10:35am of the same day. Do you want anyone to believe that you are an innocent party?”

Higher offices

Mr Ramez wrote to Makerere University Council, the highest policy-making organ at the institution, on October 20, 2010, demanding audience to resolve the stalemate.
“My desire has been and still is, to develop the said land with a five-star hotel,” Mr Ramez wrote. “I appeal to all of you to find a focal point or a way in which this current impasse/dispute can be resolved, without necessarily having recourse to the courts of law.”

In the letter, Mr Ramez said he has lived in Uganda for nine years and had acted in good faith after land brokers, whom he did not name, showed him the land in Kololo.
He said the brokers introduced him to the said Janice Amayo as the owner of the land and he paid $3.5m in two installments, both in cash. He said he and his lawyers saw a lease agreement, purportedly between Makerere University and Ms Amayo over the land, which he believed was genuine.

Mr Ramez says he was also informed that some two people who signed on the documents were bona fide university signatories. He asked the council to allow him take the land and pay annual rent for the duration of the lease.

In his letter to Mr Ramez, Prof. Baryamureeba challenged the investor to produce the said Ms Amayo as well as evidence of the money he allegedly paid for the land. He also questioned why Mr Ramez would pay for a sub-lease on the land without seeking a no-objection from the landlord.

Prof. Baryamureeba told this newspaper last night that he stands by his comments to Mr Ramez and his view that police should investigate the transaction. “We have the original title of the land and for him to have gone to the Land Registry and obtained a lease, without producing the original title as required, could only have been fraudulently done,” the vice chancellor said.

He added: “We are concerned this might cause unrest among students, staff and alumni. According to our valuation, the land in Kololo is worth $7 million.”
Mr Ramez declined to discuss the matter in the absence of his lawyer when contacted by telephone last evening. “I did not do anything wrong and I cannot comment any further. Just be fair (in your article),” he said.

Under siege
Makerere, Uganda’s largest public university, is battling court cases of encroachments on its land and other property such as in Katanga, near Wandegeya and Kololo. Mr Bruce Balaba, the chairman of Makerere Convocation, weighed in last night with a call on all alumni to “resist the attempt to grab the university land under the guise of foreign investors”. He said: “We demand an explanation from the government how this fraud can be protected to this level.”

New twist
His comments follow a new directive, allegedly by President Museveni, directing Prof. Baryamureeba to ensure vacant possession of the land because Mr Ramez is a “bona fide purchaser and an investor that has expended substantial sums of money towards making his project a reality.”

The November 17 directive, signed on behalf of the President’s Principal Private Secretary, Ms Grace Akello, by a one Jeffrey Atwine came just seven weeks after Mr Museveni assured Makerere staff that the institution’s land would be protected.
The university employees, who were striking over a pension dispute with the National Insurance Corporation, met the President at State House on September 26 and he reportedly said, “Nobody can dare touch land of a public institution, not least a university.”

U-turn

It appears that the President changed his mind less than two months later. Last night, his press secretary, Mr Tamale Mirundi, said State House legal department had confirmed that Mr Atwine authored the second letter as a reminder about Mr Museveni’s earlier directive.

Mr Museveni has previously involved himself in directly offering public land to investors usually foreigners. On his orders, historic buildings housing the public broadcaster UBC and part of Office of the President on Nakasero Hill were demolished and the land turned over to the Aya Brothers to erect a hotel to host delegates for the Chogm summit. Three years after Chogm, the hotel is still incomplete.
The President also gave a go-ahead for the demolition of the Shimoni schools in the city centre so that a Saudi prince could build a hotel complex but the land has turned to bush.

Mr Museveni, who has also been pushing for land in Naguru estates to be offered to Opec Prime, a firm owned by UK-based investors, says the developments contribute to economic growth.

However, critics say many of the investors are fronts for local comprador businessmen and worry that the presidential directives undermine the safeguards to public assets built within the bureaucratic procedures.

Last night, Prof. Baryamureeba said the university was looking for private partners to co-invest in a hotel on its nine-acred piece of land in Makindye, a Kampala suburb, and advised Mr Ramez to express his interest in the project, if he felt so inclined.

How land changed hands

• Makerere University, established as a University College of London in 1922, acquired the contested land in Kololo in 1962, according to officials.
• The land, measuring approximately 1.246 hectares is comprised on Plots 24 and 26A, Prince Charles Drive Road. Its official reference in the Land Registry is LRV4055 Folio 15.
• Makerere says it left the land to fallow as it concentrated on developing its other properties. With an average lot in Kololo costing Shs1 billion and upwards, the vacant land has become an attraction, if not temptation, for real property investors.
• Mr Nassour Ramez, the Lebanese investor who has got a presidential nod to take over the land, says he bought it at $3.5 million (Shs8b) from one, Ms Janice Amayo, in December 2009 and holds a lease title for it.
• Makerere, however, insists it holds the original title for the land – and has never sold it to anyone. The transfer of the land in Ms Amayo’s particulars allegedly occurred at 10:30am and five minutes later, lease was granted in the particulars of Mr Ramez.
• All transactions were concluded on Christmas Eve last year.
  Whereas Mr Ramez wants to erect a $17m (Shs39b) five-star hotel, the University administration is committing Pounds1 million (Shs3.6 billion) it holds on a UK bank account and drawing on mortgage to build a proposed $7 million (Shs16b) high-class residential apartment to let.
• It happens that both Mr Ramez and Makerere University decided to kick start their separate projects on the same piece of land almost at the same time, culminating in the wrangle.
• President Museveni, who is the varsity’s official Visitor, has weighed in and reportedly issued two directives, one to police and the other to Vice Chancellor, Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba, to ensure investor picks the land unencumbered, and without delay.

Compiled by Tabu Butagira