By Spy Uganda
The Lands, Housing and Urban Development Minister Judith Nabakooba, issued 1300 land titles to customary land owners in Butaleja District and urged them to embrace customary land registration to overcome tricks of land grabbers.
The Minister told the locals that customary land titles offer the same legal tenure protection as the free-hold tenure system, let alone being cheap and easier to process.
“This is the second handover of customary certificates we are witnessing today. The first one was carried out on July 4 2019, when the President handed over certificates to 2,324 small-holder farmers and their families, of which 1,031 were women,” Nabakooba said.
She further explained that the President had encouraged those who had not yet done so to register their family land interests in order to resolve and reduce land disputes in the district.
The President had also advised the families against sub-dividing their land noting that the continuous sub-division of farmland would lead to small sized land holdings that would be hard to economically utilise.
She also observed that during the demarcation and mapping process, land disputes were resolved. Out of the 20 land disputes encountered, 19 were resolved.
The Butaleja District Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Ben Male, noted that the project has many aims, especially addressing the rampant land disputes in the district.
The Deputy Resident District Commissioner, Racheal Nkoko, commended the government for the intervention, which she said was part of mechanisms to combat rampant land disputes in the district.
The Area MPs, Yusuf Mutembuli (Bunyole East) and Ms Florence Andiru (District Woman), however, said chasing locals from the wetlands in Butaleja is like committing suicide.
“Cultivation of rice is the backbone of the people of Butaleja. So we appeal to the government to stop evicting people from wetlands,” Mutembuli said.
Globally, especially in African countries there is increasing need for agricultural land that will sustain food production to cover the food insecurities that has caused land fights. Society’s fights over land has become a very normal phenomena in an increasing populated today’s world of Globalization where culture, economic and social aspects rule.
It is from these arisen need that” Land grabbing” was born where few powerful individuals both multinational and domestic investors grabs, lease or replace communities and acquire land that rightfully belongs to the poor for their own interest.
