Uganda Land Commission to Pay UGX 1Billion Shillings in Absentee Landlord Case

High Court in Kampala has ordered Uganda Land Commission to pay more than one billion shillings to a man whose land fell under the Land Fund Program for compensation of the absentee Landlords.

The order was made by Justice Musa Ssekaana after a successful application by a frail aged man Stephen Peter Nagenda who sued Uganda Land Commission and its Secretary of failing to pay him his money despite a court order.

In 2018, Nagenda sued the Land Commission seeking to recover 460 million Shillings being the balance due for his Land that fell under the Land Fund program. However, on October 28 2019, the then Civil Division Judge Lydia Mugambe delivered a judgement in his favour in which she ordered the Land Commission to pay him his money with an interest of 20 per cent from the date of ruling until payment in full.

Mugambe also awarded Nagenda 100million shillings in damages and costs of the suit amounting to 19 million shillings.

However, despite the said order the Secretary Land Commission reportedly failed to pay Nagenda despite several demands made to the Commission. Accordingly, the old man returned to court through his new lawyers of Kakuru and company Advocates demanding orders compelling the commission to pay.  

The court records indicate that during the hearing before Justice Ssekaana, the Land Commission together with its secretary never filed any defence to oppose Nagenda’s allegations against them and neither did they appeal against the decision by Justice Mugambe.

As a result, Justice Ssekaana in his ruling has directed the Secretary to the Commission to effect the payment within this financial year 2020/2021 since by the time of making the budget estimates for the financial year 2020-2021 the judgment of Justice Mugambe had already been delivered and they should have included Nagenda’s monies as a debt not yet paid.  

At the hearing, the old man brought evidence indicating that the office of secretary land Commission has duties under section 50 of the Land Commission as the accounting officer of the Land Commission and therefore has an obligation to satisfy the orders of Court in respect to his payment. The Judge has accordingly agreed with him.

In the recent past, the ministry of lands indicated that the Uganda Land Commission requires an annual allocation of 170 billion Shillings for ten years or a one-off of 1.7 trillion Shillings to compensate over 6,000 claimants.