Museveni “puzzled” by endless land grabbing by State House employees

This was revealed on Friday by Ms Phiona Barungi, the State House Special Assistant on General Duties while meeting land-grabbing victims in Luwero district.

Barungi said the president had been lately overwhelmed by complaints about State House officials tormenting scores of people, especially in central Uganda.

“There’s just too many complaints about State House employees,” she said.

“We have become a big problem, even the president himself, who gave us these jobs is concerned…he does not know what to do.”

“He sent us to serve the people but we are now serving our stomachs. It has gotten to a point where almost every state house official is involved in a land wrangle somewhere.”

In a meeting held in Zirobwe village in Bukyimu sub-county in Bamunakika, Barungi said her office was being bombarded on a daily basis by helpless people, some facing death threats from powerful people.

“Yesterday I had just landed from Turkey, I even was feeling sick, but I found a man at the airport waiting for me,” Barungi told the meeting.

“He told me that a man connected to Gen Muhoozi Kairerugaba was hunting him to kill him and take his land.

“When I asked around, it turned out that this man has no connection to Gen Muhoozi. He is just a serial land grabber.”

In the meeting, the residents singled out a number of people who have been harrassing them, destroying their crop gardens and metting all manner of violence in order to force them out of their land.

The Minister of Lands Hon Sam Mayanja during the meeting ordered the arrest of two of these land grabbers, namely Mary Babirye and Rasmus Kagaba.