By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
The government is in final stages of introducing a new land policy that will address the land wrangles and continuous land evictions in the country, Lands Minister, Judith Nabakooba said.
Nabakooba said the current land policy, issued in 2013, does not capture some emerging land issues something that disables government efforts to handle land-related conflicts.
Nabakooba was addressing journalists at Uganda Media Centre on Friday (June 7) on the upcoming learning week to promote successful governments and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) partnerships in the land governance sector due to take place on 9th-19th June, 2024, at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
During the learning week, the ministry carry out field visits in the districts of Dokolo and Butaleja in which they will share knowledge and experience about government -CSOs collaborations to achieve land tenure security in Uganda. In addition, Nabakooba said the new policy is going to address land related challenges including illegal evictions, land fraud and forgeries conducting and concluding land reforms and enhance revenue generation for government from the land sector.
Frances Birungi, Executive Director of Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children Welfare, chairperson for National Lands Coalition (NLC) and coordinator for Her Land Campaign asked the government to address land issues affecting children, women, and Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) in the proposed new land policy.
According to Birungi, Uganda has the best very progressive people centred and pro-poor land laws, and laws on succession and inheritance of property but she was quick to note a gap in the implementation of these laws which excludes the socially marginalized groups in the country to fully exercise their land rights and contribute to the development of the country.
On the other hand, Doreen Kobusingye, an official from NLC said the government should amend the land act to include improvement of relationships between the landlords and tenants on the mailo tenure system to register landlords and their respective tenants as well as considering their technical capacity and composition because this impact their service delivery. She also suggested that the new land act should give prominence to the role played by cultural and traditional leaders in resolving land conflicts and general governance and management of land in Uganda among others.
Kobusingye noted that CSOs are going to continuously carry out sensitization to create awareness on land rights and land governance and improve on data collection on land matters among other strategies.
Over 100 foreign delegates from over 40 countries are expected to attend this conference and President Museveni Tibuhaburwa will be the chief guest.
