Minister warns land grabbers as govt gives out 1,500 titles

mbarara.  The minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms Judith Nabakooba, has decried rampant land grabbing in the country.

Ms Nabakooba was addressing the public at the handover of 1,597 free hold land titles to the residents of greater Ankole districts at the Ministry of Lands zonal office in Kamukuzi, Mbarara City last week.

She said there are rampant cases of land grabbing which have necessitated the need for issuance of land titles for both private and public land.

“In most of the districts I have been to, the government land has been encroached on. You rarely find government land which is free, because people have  grabbed it and what we are doing now as the ministry is trying to rescue some of it,” she said.

Ms Nabakooba said the government, with help from the World Bank, is issuing out land titles to residents to protect them from  evictions.

 “If land owners are left without government support, it would be very difficult for them to process their own titles since the process costs between Shs8m and Shs10m depending on the size of land,” she said.

Minister Nabakooba said 31,356 people had applied for land titles in Ankole Sub-region.

“Under this project that started in July 2018, untitled land has been demarcated and the beneficiaries will be given their respective freehold land titles. The total number of titles registered are 31,356 in the region. However, only 1,597 have been issued in the first phase,” she said.

She said the remaining titles were for people who had not cleared with URA.

 “The journey is still on, mobilise the beneficiaries to pay the Shs70, 000, that is URA fees and is required by law, once it is paid, then the process will be complete. We have been able to do the survey and demarcations  to complete this,” the minister said.

 “I urge you to use these land titles to generate more wealth, be on the look-out for people waiting to grab your land because I have seen scenarios where people are fooled into selling their land at a cheap cost just by appending their signatures to wrong documents. Guard these titles like you would your own life,” she said.

The Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation officer, Mr Nicholas Ndawula, said the process of issuing land titles would be done weekly.

“The project started in 2015 and was meant to end in 2020,however, with the prevalence of Covid-19,it was pushed to 2024.In this project we demarcated, surveyed, issued land titles and we intend to hit a number of one million Ugandans by the time it ends,” he said.

The Nyabushozi County MP, Mr Wilson Kajwengye, attributed the continued land grabbing cases to greedy leaders who do not think about the next generation.

“Before the NRM government came into power, the previous governments guarded people’s land and the government land, however, with the coming of this one, the government land was stolen,” he said.

Mr Godfrey Tumusiime, a resident of Kichwamba ward in Mbarara City South Division, one of the beneficiaries, praised the government initiative.

 “We are very happy for considering us and getting these titles, some of us had never bothered to know the use of titles until today. The process has lasted for one-and-half years but people were scared that there were mafias wanting to steal their land,” he said.

 survey

According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists in Uganda in 2012, land grabbing mostly affects the rural people.

 “Although rural communities ‘customary land rights are protected under the Constitution, these rights are being violated. As a result, communities are being displaced and losing vital access to natural resources, including land for farming, firewood, forest products and in some places, water supplies,” reads the report in part.

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