Section 14 of the Land (Amendment) Act, 2004, defines family land as land where the family home is situated, land that helps sustain the family (such as land for crops or animals or land from which the family earns an income), or land that according to the family’s norms, custom or tradition is called family land.
In Luweero district, more than 300 women occupying part of 1,208 hectares belonging to Mbaale Central forest reserve in Luweero district say they have nothing to celebrate due to the planned eviction and harassment by officials of National Forestry Authority-NFA.
In her handover report, the outgoing RDC Alice Muwanguzi observed that land conflicts were her biggest challenge and cautioned her successor to handle them with care. Muwanguzi advised the new RDCs to always work with leaders and Security Committees to resolve the conflicts.
Masaka Chief Administrative Officer Martin Lukwago says they are formulating a policy to stop the new District Land Board from further issuance of free-hold titles on public land. Lukwago told URN in an interview that a lot of wrangles in the district have a bearing on the current land management disputes in the area.
Some voters in Oyam South, Oyam district, are up in arms against Lands Minister Betty Amongi over the proposed amendment of Article 26 of the Constitution to enable government to compulsorily acquire land for public projects. Amongi represents Oyam South in Parliament. But some angry voters in the area call her a total disgrace to the constituency and Lango sub region for advancing a proposal that they say seeks to rob people of the only asset left for their livelihoods.
The presidents statement followed an appeal by Edirisa Sseddunga, the chairperson of Uganda National War Veterans Association calling for the presidents intervention to stop landlords from forcing tenants to surrender part of their land to them. Sseddunga said that the deals have left people landless.
After hearing from the occupants, the Commission tasked Geoffrey Tusiime, the Nakaseke District Senior Land Management Officer to explain why they issued land titles without inspecting the contested land and whether a survey report was done.
The Lands Department in the Office of the President says the law on landlord-tenant relationship in Buganda and Bunyoro should be revisited. Susan Abbo, Presidential Assistant on land and legal Affairs, told the commission chaired by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire that while the 1998 Land Act was supposed to resolve the conflicts between landlords and their tenants, it has instead escalated the same in Buganda.
Patrick Rubongoya, a member of Isaazi LyAbantu Bakuru Ba Tooro, an elders forum in Tooro, says the matter has been further complicated by the decision by government to return the land titles to kingdoms like Buganda and Tooro. He says the traditional institutions are discovering that the land being returned is just in form of land titles but not in physical form.
The widows, through an umbrella Solidarity of Widows Association, state that there is an increase in cases of land eviction involving widows, despite provisions of the land act which gives them a right to inherit the matrimonial home.
During the government retreat that ended on Sunday at National Leadership Institute --NALI at Kyakwanzi, Lands Minister Betty Amongi was quoted saying government is in the final stages of tabling before Parliament amendments into the Land Act 1998.
