By our Reporter,
KATAKWI:
The State Minister of Lands, Hon. Persis Namuganza has suspended the services of the Katakwi District Land Board after they erroneously allocated land totaling to 5,000 Hectares to three individuals.
While addressing the affected residents in Okore Sub County Katakwi District on Monday Afternoon Minister Namuganza said that it was not right for the District Land Board and the Sub County Area Land Committee to allocate such a big chunk of land to three individuals.
The land in question is located in Okore Sub County and was erroneously given to Akubal John, Okubu Emmanuel and Titin Grace in 2019 by Katakwi District Land Board.
The Minister has dismissed the decision of the Land board and has given back to the land to the rightful owners as other due processes to cancel the Land tittle continue.
She also ordered for the arrest and prosecution of everyone involved in allocation of the community land.
She said the arrests will be a lesson to those who have been using there offices across Teso to erroneously grab land.
A total of over 8,000 people in Okore Sub County Katakwi district have been having sleepless nights after turning to be squatters in their own land that was erroneously surveyed and titled.
It’s alleged that Akubal and the family took advantage of the Karamojong raids that forced the Bonafide occupants of land to Internally Displaced Camps and started the process of surveying the land in 2011.
It’s believed that Akubal before surveying the land was quoted saying that he had links to NGOs who want to develop the area by constructing Factories, Schools, Hospital and borehole to improve livelihoods of the locals.
Recently, PS Ministry Of lands, housing and urban development had directed the Katakwi District Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to recall the land tittle of 5,000 hectares of community land erroneously allocated to three individuals.
In her letter dated 2nd December, 2021 to the CAO Katakwi, the Permanent Secretary (PS) Ministry Of lands, housing and urban development Dorcas W. Okalany directed the CAO to recall the land tittle of 5000 hectares as it was wrongly allocated to the three individuals by the District land board.
“Information availed to my office indicates that the title issued to the named was based on misrepresentation by the applicants that they customarily owned the land when in actual sense the land was communally owned. This fact was supposed to have been established by the district land board before granting the offer which was unfortunately not done hence the grant of freehold under minute LM/04/02/19(a) of February 2019,” She wrote.
Residents of Okore Sub County in Katakwi also early this month resolved to drag the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development to Court for erroneously allocating and giving away there land
The resolution was signed by over 100 area residents who had gathered at Ocwin Primary School.
They believed that the only way to safe guard there land is to drag the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development and the District Land Board of Katakwi to court.
Source: TMC.
