SFC major, investor lock horns over land in Namanve industrial park
Maj Moses Musinguzi, a UPDF soldier attached to the Special Forces Command has been accused of grabbing land belonging to an investor at the Namanve industrial park, The Nile Post can reveal.
Mumbere Mutamaine, a Congolese investor says that having acquired a piece of land on Kyaggwe block 113 on plots 449 and 542 ,the said soldier in May using UPDF bodyguard and private guards forcefully took over the land .
In a June 10, 2015 letter, the then Uganda Investment Authority Executive Director Eng. Dr.Frank Ssebbowa gave a go ahead to Green Hedges Estates Limited to continue with the proposed sale of land on a lease agreement to Eagle General Traders, which is owned by Mutamaine.
“Given that the lease agreement does not require consent of Uganda Investment Authority to sell the leased land, it follows that your client will not need to seek consent to resell the same,” says in part the letter by Uganda Investment Authority to Green Hedges Limited.
Green Hedges Estate Limited is the company authorised by the Uganda Investment Authority to manage and lease out land on its behalf to investors.
According to the certificate of title for leasehold seen by this website issued in 2014, Mutamaine through his company Eagle General Traders were give a lease for 99 years.
Documents also indicate that a lease agreement between the company and Uganda Investment Authority was entered on November24 2014 in regards to the same land.
Petitions Bamugemereire commission
Meanwhile, through Fredrick Charles Otese, his estate manager, the Congolese investor has petitioned the commission of inquiry into land matters headed by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire asking for intervention into the matter.
“Eagle General Traders had started construction on the land in question and had stocked construction materials worth shs70 million but Maj. Musinguzi came with unidentified people and evicted Mumbere’s workers before constructing a fence around it,”Otese says in his petition to the Bamugemereire commission.
“We ask the commission to intervene, investigate and stop Maj Musinguzi from grabbing industrial park land and also restrict him from occupying it if found that he has no valid documents to back up his claims.”
Maj Musinguzi responds
However when contacted, Maj Musinguzi laughed off the claims saying they are dirty games played by the investor in a bid to fraudulently take over his land.
“I have never applied for land from the Uganda Investment Authority. It seems they were conned and are now claiming my land,” the SFC soldier told the Nile Post in a phone interview.
He claimed that the land on block 113 is his and that one for the investor is on block 111, adding that there is no way those two plots can be the same or near each other.
Maj Musinguzi explained that the Congolese investor reported the matter to Mukono police before later running to the police land protection unit at Kibuli that asked all parties to stay away from the land in question.
According to the soldier, the matter was referred to the land department in Entebbe and later a government surveyor opened the boundaries indicating that the land belonged to him.
“If the government surveyor said they did not own the land, why are they still fighting,”Maj Musinguzi wondered.
“Their block is far away from mine.”
He noted that matter was later referred to the Uganda Investment Authority and is yet to deliver its report over the same.
“They are only playing dirty games for nothing.”
When informed of referring the matter to the Commission of Inquiry into land matters, Maj Musinguzi said he would be willing to table evidence in his defence over the matter.
“I will be the happiest if the land commission invites me over the land. If the commission says the land is not mine, I will be willing to write to my bank to hand over the titles for cancellation,” he noted.
