Tenants worry as leases on district land expire

Tenants occupying a piece of land belonging to Lyantonde District Local Government risk losing their occupancy following the expiry of leases. 

At least 44 leases of the 53 given to individual tenants have expired.

Lyantonde District headquarters, which sits on 49 acres of land, is hosting 53 tenants, who acquired commercial plots of land and they are obliged to pay both annual nominal ground rent (Busuulu) amounting to Shs200,000 each and premium of Shs2m. Those settling on residential plots pay Shs150,000 and Shs1.5m as nominal ground rent and premium. 

The money collected from premium and nominal ground rent complements locally generated revenue to sustain the district operations.

Mr Simon Kamya, the Lyantonde District lands management officer, said although there have been efforts by the district to inform all lease beneficiaries to pay rent, none has heeded their call.

“There was a time when the district threatened to cancel all the leases due to tenants’ failure to remit their lease payments. That is when people tried to pay,” he said during an interview on Saturday last week. 

He said the district leased out the land for development but some plots are still idle.

A land lease is an agreement that permits the tenant to use a piece of land owned by the landlord in exchange for rent. Land leasing provides easier access to land use for a variety of purposes ranging from commercial, and residential to agricultural.

“Section 102 of the Registration of Titles Act gives us powers to repossess our land in case the lessee [tenant] fails to pay a premium,”  Mr Kamya added

Mr Bony Ashaba, one of the sitting tenants, noted that he is in the process of renewing his lease, but complained of being overcharging even after paying all the dues. 

“There is a need to streamline the mode of payments and accounts where we remit the money, lest more problems will crop up even after paying the money,” he said.

Mr Ezra Bwebale Mugenyi, the district secretary for production, said sitting tenants need to expedite the process of renewing their leases so that the district can resume collecting revenue.

“Any delay in renewing leases denies us revenue. Therefore, there is a need to speed up the process. They are lucky that even without paying, they are still occupying the district land,” he said.

Currently, the sitting tenants owe the district Shs41m in unpaid ground rent.

The land where the district headquarters are located was procured from Ms Joyce Byendozo in 1993 before Lyantonde was carved out of Rakai District.  

When Lyantonde became a district in 2006, the land was transferred in the name of the district as the registered proprietor. But Ms Byendozo has since denied selling the land to the district and recently dragged Lyantonde District to Masaka High Court, seeking cancellation of the land title owned by the district. 

The disputed land is in Kabula on Block 76, Plot 50 measuring 49 acres. 

According to documents before the court, Ms Byendezo claims she settled on the land in the early 1970s but in 1982 during the Obote II regime, the government took a small portion of the land and later put up an agricultural office and Lyantonde Sub- county offices on it yet no nominal ground rent was paid to her.

The district also owns another piece of land measuring 242 acres at Makukulu Village, 20km outside Lyantonde Town, which has also been encroached on.