Government to compensate Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro kingdoms for bibanja holders

This reporter has established that Government is seeking sh29.8b that it hopes to use to pay off all landlords including the above-mentioned traditional institutions.

While being interviewed by Saturday New Vision, the lands minister, Judith Nabakooba, told the newspaper that Government needs sh15.549b for Bunyoro-Kitara, sh10b for Toro and sh4.325b for Buganda kingdoms to enable bibanja holders stay on their land permanently.

“There is land that is owned by bibanja holders and valuation were done long before we joined the ministry. So, we want to clear all those arrears,” she told the newspaper.

Naakooba revealed that she had presented a budget of sh29.8b in her ministerial policy statement for financial year 2023.24 to Parliament.

The minister noted that colonialists distorted the land tenure system by awarding huge chunks of land to individual landlords.

“We are also going to engage traditional institutes for us to appreciate the historical injustices created by the colonialists to help us come up with solutions that would help vulnerable land tenants occupying these pieces of land,” she further said.

Uganda is currently marred by land conflicts rising from landlords owning square miles of lands, and them wanting to evict tenants occupying the land.

The current allow however does not allow the landlords to evict tenants who have lived on the land for more than 10 years.

The law offers four solutions in this case;

A landlord compensating the tenants, tenants can buy the pieces of land on which they occupy, both parties can choose to partition the land how they see fit and they could also choose to settle for the land tenants paying ground rent (busulu)