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NFA rejects minister’s orders on disputed Bajjo forest land
State Minister for Lands, Mr Sam Mayanja (R) addresses residents during a meeting on February 29, 2029. PHOTOS/ FRED MUZAALE
What you need to know:
- The forest authority says minister Sam Mayanja’s order to allow evicted tenants back on the contested land is a “sham” and “politically motivated.”
Officials from the National Forestry Authority (NFA) have dismissed an order by the State Minister for Lands, Mr Sam Mayanja, to allow more than 8,000 tenants who had been evicted from Bajjo Central Forest Reserve in Galilaaya Sub-county, Kayunga District, to return to the forest land.
Mr Moses Muhumuza, the NFA head of legal department, said the minister’s actions are a “sham” and “politically motivated”, adding that Mr Mayanja will have to explain his illegal actions in courts of law.
He said no one can enter a forest reserve without a licence and those who had been ordered to return to the forest land would not be allowed.
“According to the NFA Act, a forest reserve is land preserved for future forestry purposes. It is not that it should have trees so the statement by the minister that Bajjo Central Forest Reserve is not a forest reserve because there are no trees is baseless,” Mr Muhumuza said in an interview on Monday.
Last week, Mr Mayanja, during a meeting he convened to address the issue of tenants who had been evicted from the forest reserve, at Kataigwa Trading Centre, Galilaaya Sub-county, directed the affected tenants to go back on the contested forest land with “immediate effect”.
“Where is the forest NFA is claiming to conserve? I don’t see it. I now order NFA to pack all its property and vacate this land. I also order that all soldiers and policemen deployed on the land be removed with immediate effect,” Mr Mayanja said amid applause from the tenants, many of them cattle keepers commonly known as balaalo.
The minister’s intervention came after the tenants, who claim to have been living on the forest land for more than 50 years, had been evicted by soldiers and policemen deployed by high-ranking security officers to guard the land.
In the process of eviction, tenants claim, some of their houses and graveyards were razed and animals stolen.
The issue that had become a security threat in the district, last month prompted officials from the State House Anti-Corruption Unit to convene a meeting with the tenants.
During the heated meeting in which tenants attempted to torch bulldozers that had been brought to grade some areas of the forest reserve, the State House officials promised to investigate the matter and give them feedback.
Mr Muhumuza said people from the Galilaaya community who had applied to get land in the forest reserve had been allocated land and issued with licences, wondering why the alleged tenants had not applied as others had done.
Wondering how people got land titles in the forest land, Mr Mayanja criticised NFA for disregarding the 1995 Land Act and went ahead to allocate land to new tenants without giving priority to the sitting tenants.
“NFA is Museveni’s enemy number one because it (NFA) wants people to hate him. If all these people are evicted, will the trees vote NRM and Museveni?” the minister asked.
The minister also ordered that the land title issued to Kiira Motors in Bajjo forest reserve be cancelled, saying it was fraudulently acquired.
Kiira Motors, in 2021, bought two square miles of Bajjo forest reserve to construct an automobile assembling plant but sources say the project hangs in the balance after NFA dragged the agency to court.
Mr Moses Karangwa, the Kayunga NRM district chairperson, commended the minister for ‘returning’ the tenants to their land.
Mr John Ssemugabo, the chairperson of the affected tenants, told the minister that NFA had allocated big chunks of the forest land to high-ranking security and government officials to carry out farming and evicted the sitting tenants, who by law would have been given priority when allocating the land.
Mr Charles Tebandeke, the Bbaale County MP, said most of the balaalo who had been evicted from the land were bonafide land occupants, noting that the new tenants whom NFA had allocated the forest land wanted to sell it off to sugarcane growers.
About the forest
Gazetted in 1932, Bajjo Central Forest Reserve covers a total of 3,373 hectares. The forest reserve acts as a catchment area for River Ssezibwa and River Nile, which are water catchments for Lake Victoria.
It is the only remaining central forest reserve in the district after Wamale and Kiwuula were, under unclear circumstances, sold off to sugarcane growers.
