Lands minister, Judith Nabakoooba, has directed leaders in all districts to register government land and process titles to guard it from land grabbers.
Nabakooba made the directive on March 28 while handing over more than 400 freehold titles to residents of Kanyaryeru and Sanga Sub counties in Kiruhura District under the Systematic Land Adjudication and Certification (SLAC) programme funded by the World Bank.
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She said the chairperson, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Area land committee, and district land board of Kiruhura are directly responsible to ensure they identify all untitled land.
“The minister of local government wrote to you last year and I remember doing the same some time back informing you to protect government land,” Nabakooba said.
She added: “I instructed you to look for every government owned land and have their titles processed.”
The minister asked the district leaders to use district land surveyors, area land committees and district land boards to ensure the files are processed and taken to ministerial zonal offices to have the titles printed.
“Whenever we leave this land idle, it exposes it to grabbers who end up forging titles to take it. Make it a priority this year and next year to ensure that the sub counties plan the titling,” the minister said.
President Museveni okayed the Lands Ministry to take on the SLAC programme and in Ankole, the exercise is currently taking place in the districts of Kiruhura, Ibanda, Rwampara, and Mbarara.
Beneficiaries of this programme are asked to use their land productively and engage in commercial agriculture to get high returns during harvesting to boost their incomes.
Dennis Obbo, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Lands said the SLAC programme involves meeting the owners of land and agreeing on where their boundaries are.
“We move from household to household demarcating the land and capture the names of everybody who is a citizen of Uganda,” Mr Obbo said.
He explained that the process of making these freehold titles started way back in June 2021 and beneficiaries were only required to pay Shs72,000 Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) tax.
“The process should have cost them between shs8m and shs12m to do it for themselves. We realized that most of the land in Ankole sub region was not titled yet and land owners needed government documents to guarantee their rights.”
The SLAC programme has been in the South Eastern region, Karamoja, Eastern and soon will be in the Bukedi region.
Mr Dan Mukago Rutetebya, Kiruhura District Chairperson, asked the government to speed up the process of titling land to enable even those who have not yet received their titles to get them.
He cautioned the beneficiaries against giving their titles to money lenders as collateral saying, “Protect your titles’ jealousy, do not trust it with anyone and do not give any chance to fraudulent people.”
Ms Melsi Gataba, the Communications Officer of Mzo land office in Mbarara, pledged that by the end of April, titles for all the land which was surveyed in the area will be ready.
Ms Roseti Mbabazi, one of the residents of Rwakobo in Sanga Sub County, who received her title appreciated the president for this programme, saying she is now going to use her land productively without any worry.
