Minister Nabakooba Hands Over 400 Freehold Titles in Kiruhura Land Certification Drive

The Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development Judith Nabakooba, has handed over 400 freehold titles to the residents of Kanyaryeru and Sanga sub-counties in Kiruhura district under the Systematic Land Adjudication and Certification (SLAC) program, funded by the World Bank.

Nabakooba, during the handover of the titles, directed all district leaders to have all government land registered and their titles processed to protect it against land grabbers.

She called upon the chairperson, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), and the district land board office of Kiruhura to identify all untitled land.

“The minister of the local government and I wrote to you last year instructing you to protect government land and secure every government-owned land by processing their titles,” Nabakooba said.

The Minster further directed that district leaders engage district surveyors, area land committees, and district land boards to ensure that the files are processed and sent to the ministerial Zonal offices to print the titles.

“Whenever government land is left idle, it exposes it to land grabbers, who end up forging land titles. Make it a priority this year and next to ensure that the sub-counties plan the titling,” Nabakooba added.

Freehold tenure is a system where owners of land have a deed or title to their land, which allows them to hold the registered land forever and do whatever they want with it in accordance with the law.

According to Denis Obbo, the spokesperson for SLAC, the program involves meeting the landowners and agreeing on where their boundaries are.

“We move from household to household, demarcating the land and capturing the names of everybody who is a citizen of Uganda,” Obbo said.

The freehold title-making started in June 2021, and beneficiaries were only required to pay Ugx 72,000 to the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) in tax.

According to Obbo, the process would have cost the landowners between Ugx 8m and Ugx 12m had they done the process themselves.