Minister to landlords: Accept ground rent

The Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms Judith Nabakooba, has urged landlords across the country to respect the Land Act, 2010 and accept annual nominal ground rent, locally known as busuulu ,from their tenants.

“Refusal to take up busuulu from your tenants is still the root cause of land conflicts. Get a book and start registering all bibanja holders on your land to make clear records,” she said during an open day meeting at Mityana ministry’s zonal office to sensitise communities about their land rights.

The minister also asked residents to embrace the new national land information public portal to ease access to land information. Ms Nabakooba noted that landlords should know their tenants and avoid encroachers. Over the years, many landlords in the Buganda region, where there is extensive mailo land with sitting tenants, have complained about the low rates of ground rent, arguing that this contributes to land conflicts.

In response, Ms Nabakooba advised landlords to apply for land funds to facilitate government purchases of such land. “The National Resistance Movement prioritises bibanja holders because a big percentage of Ugandans are squatters,” Nabakooba said. Ms Sarah Nakayima, a landlord in Kassanda District, reported to the minister that her 100-acre property had been encroached upon by tenants during her absence.

She said she now lives in fear because the tenants have threatened to harm her if she continues to demand busuulu. When the minister listened to her complaints, she directed the officials at Mityana zonal office to assist her in applying for a land fund to be bailed out of the situation.

“Government will buy that land. Make sure you get all the requirements needed; our staff surveyors will come on the ground to do boundary opening on the land,” she said. Ms Nabakooba also intervened in the Bufuuma Village land issue where James Musoke Ntambaazi allegedly tortured residents from 10 villages for encroaching on his piece of land.

This conflict began in 2015 when he reportedly destroyed crops in residents’ gardens. Mr Erusama Kasawuli, the village chairperson, said his six-acre plot is among the disputed land in the area. Mr Kasawuli said he can no longer pay school fees for his children because Ntambaazi has allegedly destroyed his coffee plantation multiple times. “I have been arrested several times by the same person accusing me of trespassing on his land,” he said. The minister asked the affected locals to remain calm, saying the issue would be resolved.

Rationalisation

At the same event, Minister Nabakooba encouraged coffee farmers not to worry about the ongoing rationalisation of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority into its parent ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries.

“We are all farmers. When rationalisation came, the government wanted to cut expenditure on these agencies and improve efficiency and service delivery, nothing else,” she said. Over the past two decades, land has become a contentious issue in Uganda, especially in the central region, where landowners with titles are evicting poor tenants from what the latter consider ancestral land.

In response, angry tenants have, at times, chased off or even harmed landlords. Politicians often exploit these evictions to gain votes, and the government is now pushing for land reforms aimed at addressing land grabbing.