Muslim body bogged down by land dispute

The Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC) is up in arms with two Jinja residents over the ownership of more than 22 acres of land in Jinja North Division, Jinja City.

The land under contest is home to Bugembe Islamic Institute, one of the three biggest training centres for Muslim clerics.

Investigations undertaken by Monitor have established that the two Jinja residents at the centre of the dispute—Mr Amos Albert Igaga and Ms Angella Mukyala—are alleged to be fronts. They are believed to serve as a cover for both a high ranking government official and former lawmaker in one of the constituencies in Jinja City. 

We were unable to independently verify the allegations. Our attempts to reach out to Mr Igaga and Ms Mukyala were unsuccessful. What is clear is that Mr Usama Tariq, the chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Bugembe Islamic Institute, has since petitioned various offices, calling for cancellation of the title that was given to Mr Igaga and Ms Mukyala.

UMSC was first issued a title to the said land on October 1, 1983. The 49-year lease is still running.

“This [award of a title] is impractical as one cannot have a title over another title. We believe it is not only ridiculous, but also illegal for one piece of land to have two separate certificates of title as it is in this case,” Mr Usama wrote in a March 13 letter to Mr Sam Mayanja—the junior Lands minister.

The issuance of a second title for the same property has triggered a torrent of questions.

The existence of an older title with a running lease could have been easily detected via the plot, folio and volume numbers under the computerised land registry system.

Ms Dorcus Okalanyi, the Permanent Secretary in the Lands ministry, in a previous interview, told Saturday Monitor that it is inconceivable that a land title could have been issued against another with a running lease.

“An error could have occurred and it will be corrected if it happened,” she said, adding that “such cases will certainly be wiped out by the computerisation of the land registry.”

Connivance?
Monitor has learnt that matters around the prime land in Jinja City have been difficult to deal with in the absence of a substantive city land board. The city’s executive led by its mayor—Mr Peter Alton Kasolo—tried to constitute a land committee last February. The process was, however, halted after the Inspectorate of Government (IG) filed a petition in which they accused the mayor of following the wrong procedure of nominating members of the board.

Residents of the town told Saturday Monitor that the absence of a substantive board is fuelling cases of connivance to commit cases of land fraud. They added that this is most pronounced in the circumvention of the process of land acquisition.

Mr Igaga and Ms Mukyala’s application for a freehold title has particularly been called into question. Ordinarily, owners of properties adjacent to that for which a free hold title is sought append their signatures to a form—“Form 4.” The form is then submitted to the area land committee for approval and onward transmission to the district land board. This was not the case with Mr Igaga and Ms Mukyala’s application.

Whereas their application was backed by documents purportedly signed by occupants of neighbouring tracts of land, it has since emerged that UMSC—from which they are accused of trying to grab the land—should have signed on behalf of one of their neighbours.

“UMSC did not sign their application. None of the other neighbours, including the family of the late Issah Sseruli, alias Maziwa, signed Form 4 to change to freehold. So who signed on their behalf?” Mr Sula Sajjabi, who stays a stone’s throw away from the disputed land, asked rhetorically.

The application also had to have been endorsed by members of the land committee of Budumbuli Village in Jinja North Division, where the land is located. Saturday Monitor has, however, established that the area does not have a land committee.