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Brig Gwanga burns grader over land grabbing

WAKISO.

Rtd Brig Kasirye Gwanga has bragged of burning a grader he found at his daughter’s land in Lubowa on Entebbe Road and vowed to “deal ruthlessly with land grabbers.”
An eyewitness told this newspaper that a furious Brig Gwanga arrived at the contested land after businessmen identified as Hajji Musa Ssempebwa, Aloysius Sseruwagi and Hasan Ssemujju, had hired a tractor to level part of the land. “He came out of his car and entered it again. He came back with his gun which he cocked but returned it into the vehicle only to emerge towards the tractor with a jerrycan of fuel,” the eyewitness told Daily Monitor yesterday.
He continued: “He (Brig Gwanga) went on to sprinkle the fuel around the grader before setting it ablaze. The driver of the tractor took off.”
When contacted yesterday, Brig Gwanga bragged of having burnt the tractor and said he won’t tolerate “land grabbers.”
“I burnt that tractor. Tell them. I am now hunting them. I am a bad hunter. Let them know,” Brig Gwanga said in a brief telephone interview yesterday.
Daily Monitor was told the tractor had been hired to grade two acres of land on Block 269. The land is owned by the descendants of Yusuf Ssuuna Kiweewa who was son to King Mwanga but on which multiple claimants have a stake.
On the same Block is a proposed multibillion government referral hospital whose groundbreaking was witnessed by President Museveni on June 1. The project has since failed to take off because of the land wrangles. The financiers of the project have reportedly pulled out awaiting the settlement of the disputes.
The chairman of Lubowa Nazziba Zone, Mr Kenneth Kiwuuwa, where the tractor was burnt, told Daily Monitor that the disputed land has multiple claimants which has escalated the friction.
“You will see someone today calling themselves the owners of that land and the other day, another person will emerge,” Mr Kiwuuwa said.