Investor to evict Nabagereka school

Kampala.
In seven months’ time, Nabagereka Primary School, an institution named after the queen(s) of Buganda Kingdom, could be no more.
Kampala Capital City Authority has been given up to the end of this year to relocate the school after the Uganda Land Commission leased the land on which it seats to Boost Investments Limited.

The school has been home to some 600 pupils and over 50 staff.
The developer, on May 6, through his lawyers Ajungule and Company Advocates, issued a three-month eviction notice to KCCA.
To allay the parents fear in the middle of the academic year, and as the second term opens today, KCCA negotiated with the investor for an extension to the eviction.

“We received the notice and there’s nothing we can do to save the school,” Mr Peter Kaujju, KCCA spokesperson, said.
“However, we have reached an agreement with the developer to allow the school operate up to December 31, as we find a suitable relocation place,” he added.
Officials at the Buganda Land Board said the Nabagereka school land belongs to the Kabaka of Buganda.

However, ULC leased the land to the investor before President Museveni recently returned properties belonging to the kingdom which the Milton Obote government had confiscated when kingdoms were abolished in 1967.
“As is mandated by law that all such leases that had been issued by the ULC on Kabaka’s land be inherited by the current controlling authority, this parcel of land also has a running lease,” Mr Kyewalabye Male, the Buganda Land Board chief, said in his response to KCCA.

The Ministry of Education and Sports recently ordered all government schools to submit their land titles for safe custody.
This was after an increasing rate at which public schools were losing land or are being evicted.

Nabagereka Primary School becomes the second of the KCCA’s schools to face eviction after Shimon Demonstration school in central Kampala lost its land to an investor.

Famous evictions
A number of schools have been evicted with some loosing parts of their land to investors.
In 2005 Shimon Demonstration School was controversially evicted and its land was dolled to an investor to build a hotel in preparation for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2007.

Other schools, including Buganda Road Primary, Nakasero Primary and East Kololo among others have either been threatened with eviction or have lost parts of their land to investors. Recently there have been reports of an investor who had illegally acquired some land belonging to Kitante Primary School.