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Govt officials in forest land grab
Men collect firewood from Mabira Forest. Of the original 900 hectares of Namyoya Central Forest Reserve, less than 400 hectares are intact because of human activity. PHOTO/AFP
What you need to know:
- Fresh details indicate that individuals, including those in the government, have carved out 140 freehold land titles from Namyoya Central Forest Reserve.
- As Derrick Kiyonga reports, the Lands ministry is determined to crack the whip this time around amid the ever-decreasing forest cover in the country.
An investigation by the Lands ministry has revealed that nearly 140 freehold titles were created in Namyoya Central Forest Reserve in the central district of Mukono.
A central forest reserve, according to the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act, is per a statutory order declared to be a public forest reserve. Sections 6 to 8 of the Act, enumerates procedures that are followed before an area is declared forest.
In August, the Mukono lands office was closed to allow investigations by the State House Anti-Corruption Unit. Claims of corruption, issuance of fake land titles, and double titling of land had been doing the rounds.
In a dossier seen by Saturday Monitor, Mr Sam Mayanja, the junior Lands minister, has asked the State House Anti-Corruption Unit to expand its investigations into the Mukono lands office. He suggests this can be done by looking into how individuals got freehold land titles in the Namyoya Central Forest Reserve.
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“During the public baraaza I held at Mukono District, a lot of malpractices came up. More than 140 titles have been created in Namyoya Central Forest Reserve. This forest is gazetted and therefore, not title-able,” Minister Mayanja said in the dossier.
The titles in the dossier, the minister further says, have similar characteristics. For instance, he notes that they are manually created and fraudulently captured in the Mukono land office system. This, he proceeds to observe, is because all land offices are operating an automated system and manual titles are no longer being produced. The titles are then put on the Land Information System (LIS), which is digitalised.
“[The titles] have no supporting documents like area committee reports or land board minutes,” Minister Mayanja notes, adding that they have no Uganda Revenue Authority tax payment proof and some are registered in fictitious names and companies.
Questionable titles
On Kyaggwe Block 535, found in the forest reserve, Moses Kigongo, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Vice Chairman, has 60.33 hectares. Elsewhere, Kania Obiga, the junior Urban Development minister, has 0.405 hectares under his belt.
In the dossier, Minister Mayanja says a freehold title worth 189.157 hectares found in folio 24 and registered in the names of David Tumusiime Amooti and Moses Atworeke is false.
“It was created manually, but entered on the system. It covers over 400 acres of land fully occupied by people, including institutions like schools, hospitals, and churches,” he says.
The second freehold title cited is registered volume 1603, folio 24, area 192.043 hectares in the names of Gipson Nsiimire and Jona Ainemababazi.
“This land is over 400 acres. It was created manually but entered on the system. The land is fully occupied by people, including institutions like schools, hospitals, and churches,” the minister says.
The third title cited by the minister is also of freehold register volume 1605 folio 03 area 523.640 hectares in the name of Peter Mukisa Mutale.
“This land is over one square mile. It was created manually, but entered on the system. The land is fully occupied by people, including institutions like schools, hospitals, and churches,” Mr Mayanja says.
The State House’s Anti-Corruption Unit confirmed receiving the dossier.
“Our investigators are looking into the documents and they will soon make a determination on the next course of action,” Natasha Mariam, the State House Anti-Corruption Unit’s spokesperson told Saturday Monitor.
Namyoya Central Forest Reserve stretches into the Mukono sub-counties of Kyampisi, Nama, and Goma Division. It was initially measured at 900 hectares, but, per figures released by the National Forestry Authority (NFA), has in past decades been encroached on, with less than 400 hectares in intact.
The continued encroachment on the forest forced Ms Betty Nambooze, the Mukono Municipality lawmaker, to suggest the degazetting of the central forest reserve.
Section 16 of the Act says in order for this reclassification to happen, a local community, a local council in the area in which a local forest reserve is situated, or an interested person may, at any time in writing, request the minister to review the status of a central forest reserve or local forest reserve with the object of seeking its reclassification as a local forest reserve or a central forest reserve.
The section says the Water and Environment minister shall respond in writing to a request, refusing or allowing the request, within 180 days after receipt of the request. In her arguments before the Mukono Municipality Council, Ms Nambooze said it makes sense to degazette the land.
“The last time I made a proposal and a few propagandists made rumours that I was trying to get my share. We asked the municipal engineer and the planner to find out if there are already titles and as well as report to us on how building plans are authorised on the contested land. It is now two years and they are yet to report back,” Ms Nambooze said.
Ringing the changes
The proposal by the Mukono District Local Council to degazette the forest reserve was rebuffed by the Water and Environment ministry. While the local leaders said that the forest reserve must be degazetted on grounds of the increasing population, the ministry insisted that the request was baseless.
The depletion of the forest has been connected to the rampant corruption at the Mukono lands office, which forced Minister Mayanja to ask Doreen Tumushabe, the Mukono land boss, to step aside until investigations are done.
An internal memo handed over to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, and seen by Saturday Monitor, defended Ms Tumushabe, saying she has organised the land office in Mukono. The identity of the author of the memo is kept anonymous, with the whistleblower only described as an employee at the land office.
The whistleblower, in the memo dated August 18, 2023, said Tumushabe had first served at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) before being transferred to Mukono in 2021.
“When she came to Mukono last year, she immediately organised the MZO (Ministry Zonal Office), which was operating like the market. Staff of the MZO were mistreating the public with impunity, we reported to her the culprits and she put them to order and they were later transferred,” the whistleblower disclosed.
Tumushabe, the whistleblower said, embarked on regulating brokers who would be at the lands office full time and the district staff who were holding out as staff of the ministry of Lands and targeting a big section of the public to defraud them.
“The brokers and district staff have operated for many years in Mukono and all members of the public would treat them as kings,” the whistleblower wrote, adding that Tumushabe, who is also the Principal Assistant Secretary (PAS), dislodged them and, in turn, they ganged up against her.
Enter Bakayimbudde
The whistleblower according to documents that are before the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, said the trouble causer at the Mukono lands office is Peter Wasswa Bakayimbudde, who passes off as an agent of President Museveni’s brother Gen Salim Saleh. Mr Bakayimbidde, the whistleblower claimed, is the personal assistant of Persis Namuganza, the immediate past junior Lands minister, who is now junior Housing minister.
Bakayimbudde, the whistleblower said, was appointed a land officer recently and he was first posted to Gulu City. He, however, allegedly refused to head there. Ditto when he was posted to Tororo. A posting to KCCA was accepted, but Bakayimbudde also still works at Mukono.
Purported to work at the behest of what the whistleblower calls the “mafia”, Bakayimbudde is alleged to have sworn to dislodge the PAS (Tumushabe) who had become a stumbling block to their mission and start off with its agenda with immediate effect.”
When contacted Bakayimbudde refused to comment, saying the matter is still under investigation. But the whistleblower said 40 certificates of title on Block 209 with a total acreage of 714.091 acres in the villages of Nkwale, Kitemu, Kasaka, Koome, and Nsasi were registered in Bakayimbudde’s name and later sold to Uganda Land Commission to obtain compensation from Uganda Land fund.
“Currently as a land officer at KCCA, he has produced a leasehold certificate of title LRV KCCA579 folio 2 registered in the names of Metro Pharmaceuticals limited for the plot of land along 6th link road, Luzira Kampala district acquired through forged minutes alleged to have been granted by Kampala District Land Board (KLDB) for land that belongs to Uganda Commission,” the whistleblower said.
In a letter dated August 1, 2023, to the Uganda Land Commission, Emmy Waligo, the Secretary of KLDB pushed Bakayimbudde farther down a rabbit hole.
“This is to notify you that Kampala District Land Board has no record of transactions on land along 6th link Luzira,” Waligo said.
Against this backdrop, Mr Mayanja has told the Anti-Corruption Court that there is enough evidence to bring criminal charges in court.
“The information therein is valuable and will assist your team to get to the bottom of the scam and get the culprits arrested and prosecuted according to the law,” Minister Mayanja wrote to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit.
Process for reclassification of a forest
Section 16 of the Act says in order for this reclassification to happen, a local community, a local council in the area in which a local forest reserve is situated, or an interested person may, at any time in writing, request the minister to review the status of a central forest reserve or local forest reserve with the object of seeking its reclassification as a local forest reserve or a central forest reserve.
The section says the Water and Environment minister shall respond in writing to a request, refusing or allowing the request, within 180 days after receipt of the request.
