Govt tells surveyors to keep off disputed land

The government through the Ministry of Lands and Urban Development has banned surveyors from carrying out boundary openings on disputed pieces of land across the country.
Lands Minister Judith Nabakooba, who was in Kyankwanzi on Tuesday, said surveyors who open boundaries on disputed pieces of land have created endless conflicts, especially in rural areas.

District leaders who spoke to Monitor welcomed the minister’s directive and accused surveyors and land grabbers of working with connected individuals to perpetuate land conflicts through connivance with officials in the land registry.
“Do not allow surveyors to open boundary openings on land (especially disputed) because this will plant conflicts in your areas leading to people being gravely affected,” she said.

However, the president of the Institution of Surveyors of Uganda (ISU), Mr Alozius Gonza, said surveyors are not the problem but rather solution givers.
“First of all, the surveyor is not doing anything new on the land but rather locating its size as it was originally years back. We advise our members to sit down with family members and first ensure that the conflicts are solved before anything is done,” Mr Gonza told Daily Monitor last evening.

On rising cases of surveyors who take part of the land after the surveys, he said: “It depends, because some families reach a consensus to pay the surveyor with part of the land, only that some surveyors take this advantage and take a big portion of land compared to the value of their work. But by law, it is prohibited and we don’t promote it.”
Addressing a section of district leaders in Kyankwanzi, the minister warned landlords against evicting Bibanja holders without following the 2022 presidential directive on evictions.

Currently, surveyors are operating under the Surveyors Act of 1934, where they, according to the minister, just conduct surveys without even doing due diligence to ascertain if the land has conflicts or not.
Some surveyors, she said, disregard the existing laws barring them from sharing part of the land they are hired to survey, which creates more conflicts.

Section 333 A (1) of the Succession Act clearly bars anyone offering a service on any land from sharing part of it.
Ms Nabakooba said local leaders can avert such conflicts by stopping surveyors from conducting any activity until the entire family and residents are present at the scene.

The meeting was attended by the district chairpersons, councillors, sub-county chairpersons, and various chairpersons from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) from four districts; Hoima, Kakumiro, Kassanda, Mubende, and Kyankwanzi.

According to Ms Nabakooba, multiple conflicts have always arisen in the Mailo Land system between the landlord and tenants where the former tries to evict tenants, especially after secretly selling to another individual. “Do not allow anyone to carry out unlawful evictions. If the landlord wants to use the land, let them first compensate the bona fide occupants (Bibanja holders) according to available rates in the area,” she said.

According to Ms Nabakooba, several residents in rural areas are suffering and being evicted because they are ignorant about their rights, calling upon leaders to carry out sensitisation.
Speaking at the same meeting, Mr Charles Balala, from the Office of the Administrator General, re-echoed Ms Nabakooba’s call for local council leaders to be part of dividing inherited properties.

Mr Balala noted that courts of law are guaranteed with supreme powers to handle the properties of the deceased before they are shared amongst the beneficiaries.
“You, however, need to first present authentic documents concerning the land before taking up any step. Many fraudsters hoodwink village chairpersons to take up people’s land after giving them bribes,” he said.