As inventory of public land vanishes; the first signs of a land crisis are here

The old man’s compound was tightly packed under white tents with his family and friends who had come to pay their respects seven years after his demise. As the tributes wound up, his brother slowly rose up to speak in Rukiga. He spoke slowly, uncharacteristic of how fast the Bakiga brethren go about their business.
In our history, he offered, “we were on the move”, “Our origins are in Keeru. We are Abasigyi who later moved to Rugarama. In our culture, this was common, land disputes were resolved by a fight. When you lost, you had to move.” His father’s family had thus moved a great distance by the standards of the day to Rugarama; his eldest brother took up at Rushoroza where he lived with Catholic priests. He himself like many Bakiga moved to Mbarara, in Kashari, Rwampara, Isingiro and Ntungamo.
The beautiful banana plantations you see along the highway are mostly tended to by Bakiga. Some later became active in local politics in the land of their adoption and so on. More moved to Buganda and Tooro occupying less desirable areas of habitation and are the majority in some of these places. Government recognising that the land situation was not getting better, kept in place a policy a former Kigezi Chief Ngorogoza to encourage active migration to new frontiers in Tooro, which was considered underpopulated, Kibaale District and so on.
On paper, such policies were desirable, but since 1995, they have been abused. Government has simply embarked on a programme to divest itself of all public land and in the process taken control of customary land whose ownership may not have been documented through land titles, but which land clearly belongs to the communities where it is located.
A new urgency has been precipitated by the rise in the cattle keeping population - a land intensive operation that requires vast grazing lands and water.
The beef industry cannot take off in Uganda due to three independent factors: First is the shortage of ground water caused by poor management. The cattle belts in the west, north east, and central Uganda are experiencing dry wells as surface precipitation has dropped. Second the cattle stock has genetically been poorly managed resulting in low carcass weights.
Very soon, Uganda will be importing beef in the same way it is importing milk and poultry products. Milk production in Uganda is also very low. Many so-called ranches are simply squatting on vast tracts of land with very low per unit of land productivity.
In Buganda where land was administratively taken from the people in 1900, vast acreages of land were turned into Crown Land to be used for their benefit in the future. The district lands boards established under Article 241(1) of the Constitution to hold and allocate land not owned by any person or authority, have done their part by distributing substantively all land.
To democratise the process, some of this land is “allocated” to locals whose ownership ends at allocation as these chits are quickly reconsolidated and sold off. This tragedy has promoted landlessness and privatised communal water sources, grazing lands and sources of firewood putting even more pressure on gazetted forests.
In Mpigi District, NFA recently reported that out of 11 forests, only five remain and really there is really just one of them that still has attributes of the forest, Mpanga Forest, the home of the shrine to Kibuuka, the Ganda god. In Nakaseke District, one wonders how a school dropout became secretary of the district land board and the havoc over which Nakaseke and Luweero land boards preside yet they are approved by the Minister of Lands.
With proposed massive alienations of more public land being proposed in Mbarara, Maruzi, Karamoja and Amuru, it’s easy to understand why the public is mobilised against the constitutional land amendment to promote effortless acquisition of private land.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law
and an Advocate. [email protected]