Jinja finally gets land board after 3-year wait

Jinja City Council has finally approved a land board committee after councilors had frustrated prior efforts for three years.

The development also comes after Monitor last week reported that the absence of a land board had cost Jinja City about Shs5billion during the period.

According to the Uganda Land Act (1998), land boards are responsible for holding and allocating land in cities, but the absence of one in Jinja City had negatively impacted on its development, according to Mayor Peter Kasolo.

But on Tuesday, city councilors led by Speaker Bernard Mbayo, unanimously approved a seven-member land board committee chaired by advocate Jamiru Mukama Sanyu.

Other members include lawyer Alex Luganda and Busoga Kingdom’s Attorney General Barbra Munyaruguru, a long-serving teacher at Jinja Progressive Academy (JPRA) and businesswoman Harriet Mirembe Mukisa.

Appointees also include businessman Phillip Bogere, ex-district councilor and entrepreneur Mohammed Katuntubiru as well as Joram Emmanuel Kamugisha, also a businessman.

Mbayo told Monitor that the land board committee was passed “in the interest of the public to end the three-year vacuum that was creating losses and disservices in the City.”

“Mr town clerk, we recently read in Monitor that Shs5billion was lost in the last three years due to absence of a Land Board and now that we have approved this committee today, let me hope this money will come into our coffers,” Mbayo noted.

Kasolo cautioned new committee members against corruption as he offered apologies to Jinja residents for the delay in creating a substantive board.

“I urge residents in the city to formalize all the land acquisition deals brokered before the appointment of the land board to avoid risks of losing their land,” he appealed.

The land board is expected to boost further development “since investors will prefer putting their businesses on secured land.”

The Jinja City Secretary for Works Juma Ssozi claimed some (road) works had stalled due to absence of a Land Board to help in the compensation process.

Background

Jinja Executive, led by Mr Kasolo, in February 2022, seconded six individuals to the membership of the city’s land board, including Luganda, Munyaruguru, Zaituni Malole, Bogere, Kamugisha and Innocent Anyole.

However, in her letter dated February 8, 2022 addressed to Kasolo, the deputy Inspector General of Government Patricia Achan Okiria halted their approval until a proper procedure was followed in constituting it.

The IGG was acting on reports that Kasolo did not follow the right procedure in the process of presenting nominees to the board before the executive committee, and that he allegedly singlehandedly came up with the nominees without the knowledge of the executive committee.

In another letter dated December 15, 2022, Ministry of Local Government Permanent Secretary Ben Kumumanya stopped the Council from discussing the appointment of the city land board members during their (Council) meeting scheduled for December 16, 2022.

This, Kumumanya said, was in fulfillment of his ministry’s mandate as provided for in the Local Government Act.