Nabakooba cautions Luweero RDC over contested land, halts boundary opening

Lands Minister, Ms Judith Nabakooba has halted boundary opening and stopped all activities on a disputed piece of land stretching in five villages in Makulubita Sub County, Luweero District.

The minister cautioned Mr Bwabye Ntulume, the Luweero Resident District Commissioner against accepting any kind of survey conducted on the disputed land before resolving the issues.

“I have halted all activities in terms of boundary opening exercise on this block until we have handled the matter conclusively because people were living in fear of being evicted. Let us first investigate the matter and conclude it,” the minister said during a meeting with residents from more than five villages at Namayamba Primary School on August 30.

The affected villages include; Mulira, Kasizi, Namayamba, Mawu and Wesune.

She asked village chairpersons to write all their residents and file their Bibanja [plots] size and where they are located.

Ms Nabakooba also tasked the District Land Board to sit and scrutinize all titles and those issued in error cancelled.

“We expect the District Land Board to sit and recall the minutes that offered land to landlords who were not staying in the area. If they do so, then they will write to the Commissioner Land Registration, requesting him to cancel those respective titles,” she said

The contested land which sits on Kalasa Block 207 and 208, Plots 35, 61, 190, 191, 218, 57, 68, 27, and 207 measures more than 13 square miles.

Ms Nabakooba revealed her ministry has been investigating the matter for the past two years and reports indicate that this was an official Mailo land which was vested into the hands of the Uganda Land Commission after the abolition of Mailo land in 1975.

The minister further explained that it was not until the “Ebyaffe” [properties] were introduced in the Buganda Kingdom and some of the properties were returned to the kingdom,”

“Several titles have been created by different entities, the District Land Board, Uganda Land Commission, and Buganda Land Board. We therefore need to sit and analyse properly all these titles, to find out how they come into existence and under what circumstances were they created,” she explained.

She added: “Those which will be found to have been created in error must be cancelled by the concerned authorities. Those that are legally known, we shall make sure that Buganda Land Board gets in touch with those who have legal titles so as they can find a way forward.”

Nabakooba said that all land titles that were formed by the District Land Board after properties were returned to the Buganda Kingdom are illegal.

On his part, Mr Ntulume said unlike before, any landlord who plans to survey his land has to follow certain procedures to ensure that no cases of land grabbing are registered.

“One has to get a letter from the district staff surveyor, which is presented to my office and I write another letter that the land owner takes to the village chairperson indicating the Block and Plot number and the instructions of surveying the land,” he said.

Land has become a sticky issue in many districts across Uganda with every landowner making all efforts to protest what he/she has for posterity. In some districts, wealthy people with land titles are evicting poor tenants from their ancestral land claiming that they are illegally settling on the land. It is on this basis that the government is pushing for land reforms which State officials say are aimed at curing rampant evictions in the country.

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