In the report, the Committee Chairperson, Kafeero Ssekitoleko, says that Cabinet had agreed to pay the sitting tenants Shillings 17.7 million each as ex-gratia. The committee however proposed that the money be increased.
According to Bobi Wine, a number of land grabbers known to president Museveni have invaded Bunyoro sub region carrying out brutal evictions of residents but nothing is done to stop them. The legislator was speaking at the campaign rally organized by Asinasi Kamanda Nyakato, the Forum for Democratic Change-FDC party candidate for the Hoima woman parliamentary by-elections at Hoima Boma grounds on Monday evening.
Led by Gilbert Owonda, the area LC 1 Chairperson, the residents, say Kaahwa has a title covering 806 hectares in the neighboring Kakoma Burwe village but he wants to use it to forcefully grab their land in the neighboring area.
The residents were evicted last week when a group of bailiffs, accompanied by police and Uganda Peoples Defense Forces-UPDF personnel, stormed the area, razed over 50 houses and slashed crop gardens, a new twist in a battle that has lasted more than 10 years.
The directive was issued by Agnes Nabirye, the Resident District Commissioner, following complaints of torture by soldiers attached to NFA. Recently, the UPDF evicted over 100 people in Mpolwe village claiming that they had encroached on the forest land measuring 2,110 hectares. The residents had cut down all trees for charcoal.
Several residents lost their houses, crop gardens and animals during the brutal evictions executed with the help of police. Museveni arrived at Kilangira village at 6pm, where hundreds of evictees had patiently waited for him since morning.
The contested land is located along the shoreline of Lake Victoria in Entebbe municipality. This is where fishermen who were initially evicted from Makusa and Lwamunyu landing sites located on an outlying island of Entebbe municipality had found refuge. It is now home to 3,500 people.
Lutaaya had refused to vacate the house for which he had earlier been compensated 165 million Shillings by the Uganda National Roads Authority-UNRA. The land, from which Lutaaya was evicted, is reserved for the expansion of the Entebbe Expressway in Entebbe Division A.
The contested plots of land located in the different localities within the municipality contain dilapidated staff houses where government agency employees used to reside. Up to 184 residents currently reside in the contested houses.
On Saturday morning, the Aviation Police on directives of the civil aviation authority demolished houses where the Ministry of Agriculture officials were residing. They alleged that the eviction was meant to create space for expansion of Entebbe international airport.
On Thursday night, unknown people accompanied by police officers from Fort Portal razed down houses, cut banana plantations and forcefully fenced off the land measuring 20 acres.
Controversy over the ownership of the land stems from a donation of more than 460 acres of land to Soroti University by Teso College Aloet. But residents in the adjacent village accused the University of annexing an additional 110 acres to the chunk that was originally donated.
Slain Assistant Inspector General of Police AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi has been named in the saga leading to the illegal demolition of a government building in Jinja.
Justice Catherine Bamugemereire says preliminary observations from the hearings in Luwero and Wakiso indicate that there a few issues around landlord-tenant relationships and evictions.
Mulira, the first witness to appear before the Land Inquiry Commission said that contrary to public opinion, landlords and landowners are not responsible for the standoffs in the sector. He says that instead, thieves who steal government money use agents to harass people and then the blame is put on landlords.
Parliament has given government one month to produce a report on the illegal evictions across the country. The directive came as Parliament passed a motion by Wakiso Woman MP, Rosemary Sseninde, for a resolution of Parliament to urge government to inquire into the recurring illegal land evictions in the country.
