Widow, businessman up in arms over Bat Valley land

A land row over a prime piece of land in the city centre has erupted between a widow and the Kampala Land Board.

Ms H. Damani and her widowed mother, Ms J. Damani, accuse Kampala District Land Board of handing over the land near Kisekka market to city businessman Ephraim Ntaganda.

The Damanis claim they still had four years left on the 15-year lease and were shocked when it was taken over last Sunday.

“My mother and I are shareholders and proprietors of Bat Valley Bar and Restaurant land located at Plot 2 Semiliki Walk Road near Kisekka Market. We have had a lease on this land since 1994 and applied for a renewal in 2020,”Ms H. Damani said Tuesday.

Kampala District Land Board signs were erected on the piece of land despite Ms H. Damani’s protests that she has a “title and running lease valid until 2025.”

When the standoff escalated to the extent of drawing in the police, Ntaganda reportedly produced a land title bearing the name Ivan Byaruhanga.

However, Mr David Balondemu, the chairperson of Kampala District Land Board, faults the Damani family of not honouring lease clauses that mandated the owner to develop the land.

 He added that whereas city land is meant for development, the Damanis did not do anything substantial over the past 21 years except set up a washing bay.

“As a body, we have powers to terminate a lease for failure to fulfil a covenant of developments. At the last lease renewal, we had warned them that if they don’t develop the land, we would repossess it. After the cancellation, a fresh [development lease of 10 years] was allocated to Byaruhanga,” Mr Balondemu said by telephone yesterday.

Mr Balondemu also revealed that “a strict development clause was inserted in the lease agreement” when the Damanis got their last extension.

 The clause requires “the lessee (Damani family) to have completed the building to the satisfaction of the lessor (Kampala District Land Board) by 31st of May 2015.”

So when the board held its 14th sitting on May 26, 2021, it “rejected the application for further extension of the lease in favour of Bat Valley Bar and Restaurant on the basis of violation/failure to honour the development covenant and passed a minute for re-entry.”

Mr Balondemu denied dealing with businessman Ntaganda over this matter, insisting that Mr Byaruhanga is the new lawful owner.

He said other people with underdeveloped plots in the city would face the same.

“As the board, we are taking over all vacant pieces of land with expired leases for failure to develop them,” he said.

 Ms H. Damani, however, claims that she had approached a bank for a loan to develop a hotel and other projects on the contested piece of land.

“We had already done some foundation on the property and we wanted to get finances from the bank, but it couldn’t give us the finances when the lease was only left with four years to expire,” Ms Damani said on Wednesday.

 “The bank advised us that we needed more years on the lease so that we could be given the finances to continue building,” she said.

When contacted, businessman Ntaganda denied any involvement in the saga.

 “I only have property opposite [the contested land]. What I know is that my business partners and I are demanding the Damani family more than Shs700m that their late dad took and she is not paying us in her capacity as the heir of her late father. Maybe that is the reason she hates me,” he said.