Short staffed Uganda Land Commission needs 80 billion shillings to safeguard government land
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Uganda Land Commission (ULC) has called for additional funding from 2-3 billion shillings to a tune of Shs. 80 billion per quarter to oversee its activities across the country.
According the ULC Chairperson Hon. Beatrice Byenkya Nyakaisiki, the commission currently depends on minute funding from the Uganda Land Support Fund which is too little to meet the commission's mandate.
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"We get between 2-3 billion per quarter and that is the amount which I found. It is very little because of the money involved in as far as compensations are concerned," Byenkya adds.
She argues, "But I believe if we could get 80 billion each quarter to pay off the absentee landlords, or for those land titles which the Uganda Land Commission has, and then to go ahead and passel and survey the various pieces of land and then process the certificates of titles to the tenants or the so called squatters then within three or so years we will be done and every body will be happy."
The Uganda land commission was established by the 1995 Constitution Art. 238 with a mandate to hold and manage any land in Uganda vested in or acquired by the Government of Uganda in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution .
According to ULC boss, ULC oversees public land amounting to 11087.748 square miles located in different parts of the country. Public land includes but not limited to schools, health facilities and road land.
The limited funding to the ULC has also caused inadequate staffing so that only 8 staff are attached to it.
She says, "With only eight people, we are supposed to manage the land on behalf of government, monitor and do everything. That is why we see that people encroach on the land and we are told we cannot police it because we are thin."
The Uganda Land commission suggests the creation of an independent land fund to provide logistical support to the commission in as far as implementing her activities is concerned.
