District risks losing headquarter land

LYANTONDE. The controversy surrounding ownership of land housing the Lyantonde District headquarters has taken a new twist with a purported landlord seeking cancellation of the land title owned by the district.
Ms Joys Byendezo through her lawyer Mr David Mushanga of Mushanga and Company advocates has dragged Lyantonde District to Masaka High Court, claiming that the title currently in the names of Lyantonde District Local Government was fraudulently acquired because she never sold the land to the district.
The district is required to respond to the allegations in a case the lawyer claims has made her client unsettled. The case is before Justice Winfred Nabisinde.
The disputed land is comprised in Kabula on Block 76, Plot 50 measuring 49 acres. According to documents before court, Ms Byendezo claims she settled on the land in the early 1970s, but in 1982 during the Obote II regime, government took a small portion of the land and later put up an agricultural office and Lyantonde Sub- county offices yet no nominal ground rent was paid to her.
“We have tried through negotiations to have this matter resolved but failed. We now believe court will look into this matter and administer justice,” Mr Mushanga said in an interview with the Daily Monitor on Friday.
Mr Mushanga claims that before Lyantonde was carved out of Rakai District, his client approached Rakai District Local Government seeking compensation for the land, but the district officials took advantage of her being illiterate and made her sign documents that she did not know.
“When she [Byendezo] went to Rakai District headquarters in 1993, the district officials told her that they wanted to buy only five acres of land which they occupied then, which she accepted and they paid her Shs8 million. Ms Byendezo accepted to surrender her land title to Rakai District Local Government to ease the process of transfer for the five acres, but her mother title has gone missing since that time,” the lawyer said.
Mr Fred Muhangi, the Lyantonde District chairperson, however, denies the allegation that the district is occupying the land illegally, insisting that they acquired the land through the Rakai District Local Government which duly transferred the land ownership to Lyantonde, making the latter the registered proprietor of the land.
However, Mr Paul Martin Yiga, the Lyantonde principal assistant secretary, heaps the blame on Rakai District administration, who he says left Byendezo to occupy part of the land even after she had sold it to the district.
According to the district land status report 2017, before the subdivisions were made, the land had only two bona fide occupants including Ms Byendezo and the late Rev James Ngabonzira’s family. The land on which the district headquarter is currently located was procured from Ms Byendezo in 1993.