Families, school fight over land
What you need to know:
- The school was established in 1984 during the Obote government. It currently has an enrollment of more than 2,000 students.
About 50 families of Kabwangasi Town Council in Butebo District have accused the administration of Kabwangasi Senior Secondary School of grabbing their land amounting to 150 acres.
The school was established in 1984 during the Obote government. It currently has an enrollment of more than 2,000 students.
Ms Christine Namanda, the leader of complainants, claimed that the school fraudulently annexed their land.
“We discovered the anomalies after the concerned families attempted to process their titles for the land but were told the school acquired land title measuring 40.8 hectares,” Ms Namanda said.
Ms Namanda said they have petitioned the Minister of State for Lands, Mr Sam Mayanja, to intervene.
In their letter of February 14, 2022, the families accuse the school of grabbing community land of freehold register, volume 323 folio 4 at Kabwangasi.
“The 50 families and customary land owners have lived under threat of unlawful annexation of their land since March 1995 by the Uganda Land Commission,” the letter reads in part.
Mr Dawson Kirya, another affected resident, also dismissed reports that the community donated the land to the school.
The Butebo Senior Land Officer, Mr Timothy Omaido, said the process of giving land titles to the affected communities was stopped because of the current confusion.
“We learnt that the land in question had already been surveyed and it is illegal to again process and issue another title on the same piece of land,” Mr Omaido said, during a stakeholders meeting held at Mukanga Primary School at the weekend.
The Butebo Resident District Commissioner, Mr Paul Mwidu Kalikwani, said he was instructed by the minister of land to come up with possible ways to solve the dispute.
“I was instructed to hold a stakeholders’ meeting to discuss the recommendations and also come up with possible ways to address the issue between the community and the school in order to have a win-win situation,” he said.
The district chairman, Mr James Okurut, urged the concerned families to remain calm, saying the matter will be addressed. “The school needs parents and likewise the parents also need the school for our children,” Mr Okurut said.
Mr David Mugisha, the officer in-charge of land matters in the Ministry of Education, who represented the commissioner of secondary education during a meeting at the school last week, reiterated that the matter would be solved amicably.
“The best option is to reopen the boundary afresh and determine who encroached on each other’s land. Nobody will lose his or her land once reopening of the boundary has been done,” he said.
School’s position
The school headmaster, Mr Twaha Nabirere, acknowledged that the school has a land title for disputed land.
“I found a file containing land matters. The school acquired land title for 150 acres [40.8 hectares], according to the records available,” Mr Nabirere said.
The school board of governors chairman, Mr Ibrahim Walibonaki, said the people donated land for the establishment of the school.
