President Museveni has extended the working period for the commission of inquiry into land matters for another period of six months.
President Museveni appointed the commission to in December 2016 and it was sworn-in in February.
Among other terms of references, the commission headed by Catherine Bamugemereire was supposed to look into effectiveness of the land law, policies and processes of land acquisition, land management and administration in Ugandan.
Bamugemereire he extension.
“Yes, we received the instrument a couple of days ago,” she said.
“It is a welcome development because it is an endorsement of the work of the commission by the appointing authority.”
Other members of the commission are: Robert Ssebunya(the presidential adviser on Buganda) and former Attorney General Fred Ruhindi.
According to the Amendment of Legal Notice dated November 5, President Museveni said this notice shall be deemed to have come into force on the 10th day of November 2017 .The commission shall execute its mandate under this notice within six months from the date of this publication notice.”
The commission has in the past few months conducted several public hearings in many areas including Kampala, Wakiso, Nakaseke, Luweero, Mukono, Jinja and Mubende among those districts.
During one of its visits to Wakiso, the commission unearthed the rot run by mafias in the Wakiso land registry as told by some of the victims.
“They have a lot of influence that when you report them, nothing is done.They are the same people who receive applications for land titles and run the chain up to clearing one to be given a land title,”Satia Mwangusyo, a principal land management officer who almost fell a victim by being poisoned told the commission.
The commission also discovered that one businessman fraudulently acquired 180 acres of land in Wakiso for only three million shillings.
The commission also quizzed the state minister for cooperatives, Fredrick Ngobi Gume and his Constitutional Affairs counterpart Gen Kahinda Otafiire over their alleged involvement in land sagas in Jinja district.
The deceased for police spokesperson AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi and businessman, Abid Alam, too, were not spared with the latter being detained briefly at Wandegeya police station before he was released on police bond over involvement in land eviction.
