Stop sharing land as an inheritance, Museveni tells Sebei leaders

President Museveni has cautioned leaders in Sebei sub-region against fragmenting land and sharing it as an inheritance as this results into unproductive yields thus leading to poverty.
He said families should instead jointly own land and only share its proceeds based on an agreed of shareholding formula.
Mr Museveni made the call while meeting with Sebei leaders at Chelel Village, Tuban Parish in Kapchorwa District on Wednesday.
The practice of land fragmentation is common in areas of Teso and Sebei sub regions, according to a 2017 report by Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) on land disputes and human rights in selected regions of Uganda.
The Land Act 1998, puts restrictions on transfer of land by family members, especially in the case of land on which ordinarily reside orphans below majority age with interest in inheritance of the land, except with the prior written consent of the committee on application for certificate of customary ownership.
The President’s visit was part of his regional campaign to foster wealth creation at the household level for economic development.
In a statement issued by his media team, Mr Museveni also emphasized the need to embrace commercial agriculture.
He urged the leaders to abandon subsistence farming if they want to generate good income.
“And when we do that, it must be guided by numbers. For example in Sebei, I have discouraged the growing of maize. This is a cold area, it takes maize up to nine months to mature. You can grow other crops like wheat that fetch you better money in a shorter time,” Mr Museveni said.
Mr Museveni said for development to occur, it must be understood first, stating that one can only address an issue depending on how he or she has appreciated it.
“That is where the National Resistance Movement (NRM) differs with the other parties, because we have taken our time to study Uganda's problems and offered correct solutions,” he said.
“Take the case of our insistence on stabilizing the country and other interventions like free immunization for children. This has ensured our population grows rapidly. In 1979, when I was minister of defense, I visited Sebei, which had just about 20,000 people. Today, its population is about 500,000,” he added.
Citing the example of Louis Pasteur, a French biologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, the President challenged the leaders to guide the masses on how they can alleviate poverty in the region to as part of wealth creation.
“His discovery was helpful in processes like pasteurization, fermentation and in medicine practice. All these happened because someone was able to understand a phenomenon. Bacteria had always been there but no one had scientifically known about its existence,” Mr Museveni said.
“Notably, development is not an ends in itself. It should lead to wealth creation. That is why I embarked on this campaign. We are doing well in terms of development as a country but must improve on the wealth creation front. You, the leaders, must be wealth creation agents,” he said.