Protect bibanja holders to speed up wealth creation

On Thursday, the President delivered an avid wealth creation speech as part of his anti-poverty campaign, targeting the 39 percent of Ugandan households that are trapped in subsistence farming. The plan is to bring them into the money economy through what he called commercial agriculture with “ekibaro”.

In an attempt to dismantle the current rain-fed farming system, a risk to the country’s economic growth, income of farmers, as well as export earnings, the President announced plans to introduce irrigation schemes in the villages so that the locals improve their productivity.

Indisputably, the President’s wealth creation gospel has positively impacted his neighbours in Gomba where his Kisozi farm is situated. However, in other parts of the country, particularly in central Uganda, evictions have taken centre stage,  with errant land dealers terrorising bibanja holders with the help of the same public offices established to protect them.

Well-connected, greedy land dealers and sneaky landlords are now running the show, bribing government officials and judicial officers with pieces of land and cash. 

Income poverty levels are increasingly getting worse among the majority (84 percent) of rural Ugandans who derive their livelihoods from agriculture. This is happening because of the indiscretions of the bad apples in Lands ministry (Registry), State House Anti-Corruption Unit, police, Uganda People’s Defence Forces, Resident District Commissioners , Inspectorate of Government and the Judiciary that have all disillusioned the country.  

The mayhem in the villages is happening in spite of President’s 2022 orders on evictions. In a March 2022 letter to Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, the President invoked Article 98 (1) and 99(1) and banned all land evictions in the country that are carried out without the consent of the respective District Security Committees. It appears the mafias overran Ms Nabbanja and whitewashed the President’s directives. 

For government’s wealth creation efforts to thrive, we propose the following interventions. Let us stop procrastination and reform our land tenure system. Let us introduce meaningful reforms that allow bibanja owners to deposit the annual nominal ground rates (busuulu) at the sub-counties and stay on their land permanently.

 Asking the bibanja holders to buy the land on which they are already settled makes no sense. This is what is keeping our people in perpetual poverty. Let us put money in the Land Fund to compensate landlords who usually use the backdoor in connivance with heartless land dealers to terrorise bibanja holders.

We must stop land fragmentation and cut off the hands of corruption in land registry. Punish land grabbers as well as errant government officials perpetuating evictions in the various parts of the country. Implement the Justice Bamugemereire report and table land reforms.