Unresolved land ownership halt development in Tooro

According to the district chairman, Mr Richard Rwabuhinga, they planned to have their district headquarters constructed in Busoro Sub-county on 12 acres of land, but were stopped by kingdom officials. 

Mr Rwabuhinga claimed that the land belongs to the local government.
“We were supposed to have shifted to Busoro long ago but the kingdom is standing in our way with an intention to grab the land. They have an inventory of which 49 acres were surveyed and now they want to grab the adjacent 12 acres. This is government property, not a cultural site,” he said.

However, Tooro Kingdom officials say the said land is part of their properties that were in the possession of the government as per the August 2019 Memorandum of understanding (MoU) between President Museveni and King Oyo.

Mr John Kasaija, the chairperson of the Tooro Kingdom land board, told Daily Monitor in an interview at the weekend that the local government does not have the authority to build on the land, whose title is part of the kingdom’s 103 titles that were confiscated by the government more than 50 years ago when kingdoms were abolished in 1967.

“We have a verifiable claim over the land in dispute, where the sub-county buildings are situated and that land culturally and historically belongs to Tooro Kingdom administration,” Mr Kasaija told journalists on Friday.

Mr Kasaija says some local leaders in Tooro have not comprehended the details of the MoU on the categories of land to be returned by the government.

He said some of the kingdom’s unregistered lands are scattered in the districts of Rwenzori sub-region and they have proof of ownership of the structures that were built by the kingdom officials.
Mr Polly Kateeba, the kingdom’s minister of lands and housing, said the contested land at Busoro had both registered and unregistered land.

The registered land totals 49 acres, and is occupied by the residents, whereas the unregistered land totals 12 acres, and is occupied by the kingdom.
“No one has authority to question the MoU which is an executive document signed by the President and the King of Tooro, who allowed the return both registered and unregistered land belonging to the kingdom” said Kateeba.

The Kingdom deputy information minister, Mr Vincent Mugume, said the kingdom does not want to stop the district from constructing its headquarters at Busoro but to recognise the landlord as it has done in other parts of the region.

“Let them legalise their stay on that land,” Mr Mugume said.
The land dispute has sucked in the Minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, who on Friday said there is need for government to investigate who owns the land. 

He observed that the 49 acres claimed by the kingdom is also claimed by the residents currently occupying it, who claim to have evidence of ownership, with receipts they obtained from the sub-county authorities.

“Tooro Kingdom and Kabarole District local government formerly claimed ownership of the land but a third party came up, who are the residents occupying the 49 acres, with evidence of buying land from the sub-county authorities,” Mr Magyezi said.
Mr Magyezi ordered police, the resident district commissioner of Kabarole and the sub-county chief to stop any development on the land in question and not allow anyone to open boundaries until the matter is settled.

However, Mr Rwabuhinga said they are the sitting tenants and bonafide occupants where Kabarole District headquarters will be relocated from Kitumba since their current headquarters is located in Fort Portal City but will follow the minister’s guidance.

Previous incident
In 2009, construction of an orphanage in Kabarole District delayed because of a similar land dispute between the district local government and Tooro Kingdom.
The district authorities had leased 35 acres of land to SOS-Kinderdorf International for the construction of an orphanage and children’s home in Butebe, Burahya Sub-county to serve children throughout the Rwenzori region.
The then Tooro Kingdom deputy minister for legal affairs, Mr Paul Rukidi Mpuga, argued that the local government had no authority to lease out the land because it was part of the un-repossessed properties that belong to Tooro. The parties later agreed and the project took off.
Govt reavts
The State minister for Lands, Ms Persis Namuganza, who visited the region in July 2020 reasoned that the delay of the verification committee was due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 
Ms Namuganza said the verification exercise would help to ascertain which land belongs to the kingdom, government and the public.

Tooro Kingdom claims to own properties that include a building that is now occupied by local government at Busoro that totals 103 land titles of which only 19 have been returned.
According to Ms Namuganza, after the verification exercise, the government will task the kingdom to provide a certificate of occupancy to the tenants sitting on the kingdom land and the tenants will not be evicted.

Some of the kingdom land is in Kabarole, Bunyangabu, Kyegegwa, Kamwenge and Ntoroko districts, while other properties are in Kasese and Bundibugyo.

Background
 In 2019, the government agreed to return Tooro Kingdom assets (Ebyeitu) which had been confiscated during the abolition of kingdoms in 1967.

After the signing of the MoU, a verification committee was instituted by the government to visit the claimed properties and settle disputes among the parties on who should get a certificate of occupancy. However, this exercise has delayed and hence creating more conflicts around the region.

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