800 tenants receive land titles after six-year wait

Sixty-year-old Teopista Nakamya, a resident of Bulawula A village in Kitimbwa Sub-county, Kayunga District 10 years ago faced eviction from her two-acre piece of land.
The land is part of the 10,000-acre public land that had been sold to Kayunga Sugar Works Ltd, a subsidiary of Madhvani Group of Companies, to pave way for sugarcane growing. 
Kayunga District Land Board had sold the land to the company for an unspecified amount of money.
As luck may have it, Ms Nakamya, a widow and mother of six children, who is a peasant farmer, was contemplating where to relocate her family when President Museveni during the 2016 presidential elections came to the area to campaign and was informed about the pending eviction of over 20,000 residents.

The then Kayunga District chairperson, Mr Steven Dagada, had also learnt about the illegal sale of the land to the sugar company and cancelled the deal.
 He also directed that the partial payment money the buyer had paid be refunded to him.
When the affected tenants through their local leaders informed the President about the fears that they would be chased away from their land anytime, he directed the Ministry of Lands to process freehold land titles for the over 20,000 tenants.
Ms Nakamya is one among the many tenants whose wish came to materialise on April 27 , when the government finally fulfilled the presidential pledge and handed over the titles to them as a way of strengthening their security of tenure on the land.
During a ceremony held at Nkokonjeru Primary School in Kitimbwa Sub-county and presided over by Ms Hadijah Namyalo, the head of the Office of the National Chairman, who represented President
Museveni said a total of 8,000 land titles were handed over to the enthusiastic beneficiaries.

Mr Sam Mayanja, the State minister for Lands also graced the function.
The titles were processed by Mukono Ministry Zonal Office.
 Addressing the beneficiaries, Ms Namyalo, who described the function as “a historical event” cautioned the recipients against using the titles as collateral to get loans from money lenders. 
“What you have received today is real wealth and you should value it. Money lenders are now going to hoodwink you into surrendering those titles to them so that they give you loans and in the agreement you will make with them (money lenders) they will indicate that you have sold the land to them and in the end you will lose your land,” Ms Namyalo noted.
She revealed that although there were some politicians in the district she did not name who were fighting the programme, the President made sure the tenants received their titles to end land wrangles in the district.
Minister Mayanja warned district land boards in Buganda region against returning back land to Buganda Kingdom noting that such property should be under the custodian of district land boards.

“Land is the only real property. It is the cradle. If you have a title, you have wealth and you must guard it because it is what your children will inherit,” minister Mayanja noted.
“Among the 1milion people who were in the 20 Buganda counties in 1900 only 300 were given land,” he said.
Mr Andrew Muwonge, the district chairperson said the remaining 10,000 tenants would benefit under the second phase as they had delayed handing over their files with some others whose land was not surveyed.
The state minister for lands, Ms Persis Namuganza, initiated the project in 2017 targeting 20,000 locals in the sub-counties of Kitimbwa and Kayonza.

Kayunga land issue
  Kayunga is a hotbed of land wrangles, especially in the cattle-corridor areas of Bbaale and Galilaya sub-counties.
Several residents have lost their lives and property in land-related wrangles.
In 2012, President Museveni intervened to end the wrangles. But the wrangles persisted.
A landlord in Kayonza sub-county who was trying to open boundaries of his land was burnt by his angry tenants who accused him of harbouring plans to evict them.