Keep off land matters, RDC tells police

Mukono Resident District Commissioner, Ms Fatuma Ndisaba has warned police to stop involving themselves in land matters noting that they make land issues criminal.

While addressing residents and stakeholders on Wednesday while opening the zonal lands office, Ms Ndisaba said police on Land Desk confuse people and make land issues criminal just because they want to get a share.

"There are so many land cases that have been turned into criminal at police stations, which is bad," she said.

Ms Ndisaba decried the increasing number of land grabbers in Mukono District noting that most of these are surveyors that residents trust with their property.

"So many surveyors have grabbed your land because you don't trust your relatives, you only trust surveyors who even go ahead to sign for you and then take your property," she said.

Ms Fatuma also warned the land dealers to stop camping at land offices noting that they confuse people by impersonating land office staff claiming they can get them their documents quickly.

"Land offices are public and no one should be questioned by any land dealers to stay around the gate. Not even a gateman is supposed to question anyone entering these offices," Ms Ndisaba said.

The Ministry of Lands spokesperson, Mr Dennis Obbo, asked residents to be vigilant and only get to lands officials who are always dressed in uniforms to get help.

"Do not approach anybody you find at lands offices, go and talk to people in offices with uniforms for the safety of your property," he said.

Residents in Mukono District have on many occasions complained of sub-divisions of their land titles, titles taking long to be processed and processing various titles for a particular land, by the lands officials.

Ms Doreen Tumushabe, the Mukono Zonal Lands Officer said they are facing a challenge of missing NEMA and NFA maps on the system, shifts in scanned cadastral sheets and outdated maps.

"Purchasers neglect to transfer their land and registered proprietors come and process special titles with claims that their titles got lost and deal with the disposal of property and defraud previous buyers," she said.