The Commission of Inquiry into lands matters has revealed that since its establishment in 2017, 1 trillion shillings has been saved from being paid by government to unscrupulous persons who manipulate different land systems to claim compensation.
While on her visit at Next Media Services, Lady Justice Catherine Bamugemereire said the commission has managed to have a number of land titles acquired wrongfully canceled, resettled different evicted persons and reunited different communities that were previously divided over land matters.
“We have managed to cause the cancellation of a lot of titles in wetlands and forests. When we drew attention on the wetlands and forests in Nonve, Gunda and Entebbe, it was possible to create awareness and as a result we have seen ministries and agencies concerned take up the mantle and run with that, something which is commendable. Our hope is that other agencies do likewise since we are not everywhere”, said Justice Bamugemereire, the commission Chairperson as she recounted some of the achievements that the commission has successful made.
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Other areas where the commission has made positive strides in include flashing a torch in the land registration process and rampant evictions. Bamugemereire says the commission has been able to exposed fraud in lands sector, unearthed a lot of dirty in the manners in which some of the processes happen and for that, “We have friends and enemies”.
Registrars have reformed for fear of being pushed to the commission. They are very fast in doing their rightful job without greed for bribes and deliberate frustration of people,” added Bamugemereire.
She noted that, so far, 1 trillion tax payers, money has been saved from being paid to unscrupulous persons who had manipulated established systems to seek compensation in different parts of the country.
“We have been able, for instance in just one case, to stall the payment of Sh600b in one case that has to do with Isimba. In the next case regarding the same area (Isimba) Sh 70b was saved. Then in another case Sh135b that would have been paid out by now was saved if we hadn’t investigated”, noted Bamugemereire adding that “recently, Sh26.4b would have been paid out by the Attorney General’s consent. We also have billion that are coming out from individual payments from the land fund and so on. So we have all this billions flying about and we think it is almost a trillion shillings, all put together.”
The land probe chair used the same time to make it clear that the land commission of inquiry is not about to take over the roles of other institutions like the police, the judiciary and National Environment management Authority (NEMA) and National Forestry Authority (NFA) among others as has been misunderstood by a section of the public.
