Combating land grabbing in the oil-rich districts

After the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) got a 25-year oil production license in 2013, it hired a land acquisition consultant.
The company started out on the assumption that land on which it was going to operate - in Buhuka parish, Kyangwali Sub-county in Hoima District, was communally owned. It would later discover that the land hosting its oil facilities was surveyed and/or titled in the names of some individuals.
CNOOC petitioned the government, and a joint team from the Lands and Energy ministries probed the matter. The probe found that most of the transactions that had led to the titling of the land were replete with errors, including omission of fees and premium, and misleading information from area land committees.
According to the report, oil and gas installations are within 200 metres from the lakeshore, which land cannot be surveyed or titled by any individual.
“Community leaders believe that land in their village is communally owned and no individual can, therefore, survey or title it,” the report said.

On August 27, the Lands minister, Ms Betty Amongi, announced in the oil-rich Buhuka Parish that 15 land titles that had been fraudulently processed in the area had been cancelled.
“We have come to inform you that the freehold titles that were processed on your communal land were issued illegally. The titles have been cancelled and the land is customarily owned,” Ms Amongi said.
To address the rising tensions over land, Buliisa District Council has developed a land ordinance that seeks to document customs of land ownership, land use and transfer.
“It seeks to formalise land markets and transactions,” says Mr Bernard Tugume, a lands officer in Buliisa District. It also establishes a land arbitration committee that will address land conflicts. The district is also registering land owned customarily and clans that will manage it.

Legal dispute with oil companies
A group of indigenous communities in the Albertine graben have sued government, Tullow Oil Uganda, Total E&P Uganda and CNOOC Uganda Ltd seeking damages and a court declaration that all titles granted to speculators before and after oil discovery declarations were fraudulently obtained and, therefore, null and void.
The communities under the Bunyoro Kitara Reparations Agency (BUKITAREPA) have asked court to cancel fraudulently obtained titles issued to individuals for purposes of getting pole position in respect to oil royalties accruing from oil and other mineral explorations.

In its suit, filed by Mr Ayena Odongo and company advocates, BUKITAREPA claims that oil firms failed/omitted/neglected to give legal recognition and protection to land for indigenous people with due regard to their customs, traditions and land tenure systems.
“Many communities were forcefully removed from their land and forced to relocate without their free, prior and informed consent and without entering into any agreement with them on just and fair compensation and where possible, with an option of return to their land,” the plaint filed at Masindi High Court, reads in part.

In their joint defense filed by Sebalu & Lule advocates on July 11, the oil companies stated that no land has been given out or transferred to them by government.
They aver that they comply with local laws before acquiring any interest in land. “Where any interest in land has been acquired, due diligence was conducted and necessary legal and contractual agreements entered into.
Tullow Uganda, Total E&P Uganda and CNOOC Uganda Ltd contend that they hold oil licenses validly issued by government and all their activities are conducted in accordance with licenses issues under the law.
The oil firms state that BUKITAREPA is not entitled to any declaration, order or consequential order in respect to land titles issued to third parties that are not party to the suit. They pray that the suit be dismissed with costs.

Legal aid
Civil Response on Environment and Development (CRED), an advocacy NGO has documented oil influenced injustices in the Albertine graben.
Mr Bashir Twesigye, a lawyer and executive director of CRED, observes that Uganda’s legal regime guiding land rights does not provide adequate tenure security for customary land owners.
“Land titles, no matter how fraudulently acquired, easily supersede customary claims in practice,” he says.
CRED is sensitising communities in the Albertine region on their land rights and provides legal support to community groups and vulnerable individuals whose rights are abused.
CRED is also supporting community groups that jointly own land to apply for communal land associations.

“So far, 11 community groups in Buliisa District have been supported to apply and the ministry of Lands has agreed to support the formation of community land associations,” Mr Twesigye said.
The land disputes are raging in various villages.
Two hundred and fifty families are in a makeshift camp after they were violently evicted in Rwamutonga village in Hoima District, where MCAlester Energy Resources Ltd had proposed to set up an oil waste treatment plant. About 635 families were evicted in Muziranduru, Kigyagyo and Kyandagano villages in Kiziranfumbi Sub-county, where Hoima Sugar Ltd has set up a sugar factory and plantation.

Intervention from “above”
On July 21, 2015, Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda held a meeting to address repeated concerns by communities who were displaced from Bukinda village, Kyangwali Sub-county during the implementation of recommendations of the inter-ministerial verification committee for Kyangwali refugee settlement land.
“The purpose of this letter is to request you to temporarily resettle the estimated 2,000 displaced persons back to where they were removed from,” reads part of Dr Rugunda’s letter dated August 6, 2015 to the permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister.

“This is only an interim and humanitarian measure to alleviate human suffering,” the premier added.
To date, the evicted families live in a makeshift camp in Bukinda village in Kyangwali Sub-county.
On December 8, President Museveni named a commission of inquiry into the effectiveness of the law, policies and processes of land acquisition, land administration, land management and land registration to be chaired by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire.
It appears, many of the speculators who rushed to grab land in the wake of the discovery of oil may end up losing the bet.