Amuru district in talks with government over free customary land titles
AMURU– Amuru district local government is in talks with the Ministry of Lands and Urban Development to provide free customary land titles for four administrative units in the district.
The administrative units earmarked to benefit from this exercise include Amuru Town Council, Amuru Sub-county, Layima and Lakang sub-counties. Already an inception meeting has been conducted by officials from the Ministry of Lands.
Michael Lakony, the Amuru district local government Chairperson says, they seek to protect the land rights of the poor local people in the wake of massive land grabbing by fraudulent dealers.
Lakony says the four earmarked areas have been at the center of land disputes and wrangles among family members, buyers and government agencies.
For more than a decade, the locals and government of Uganda and Madhvani were embroiled in a bitter dispute over 10,000 hectares of land, meant for the establishment of a sugar factory.
Today the government is in the final stages of compensation after the matter dragged through courts, attacks that left a sizable number of people injured.
According to Lakony, the verification and documentation of land for eventual titling is being delayed by the approval of the district land board which is yet to be done by the Lands Ministry.
The district land board approved by the district council includes Johnson Oryem, the Chairperson, Florence Okwera, Richard Odokonyero, Simon Oryem and Justo Okot Gwanga. This team is yet to be approved after they reportedly submitted their CVs without academic documents.
In a recent interview, Sheila Aping, the Regional Coordinator ActionAid International for northern Uganda in a recent interview with our reporter says, most times members of the community especially, girls, women, and vulnerable persons including the persons with disability are neglected when it comes to ownership and control over land and other productive natural resources.
She was speaking during a launch of a project that seeks to support the documentation and issuing of free customary certificates of land ownership to 500 people in Guru-guru Sub County Amuru district.
Moses Onen, who works with Pellum Uganda, an NGO operating in Uganda says, for long, inadequate framework paper to support evolution of customary land registration, vast unregistered communal land of which attracts huge interests, pressure on land for large scale investments, politicking have been major drivers of land conflicts in the region
Our reporter could not independently verify this arrangement with the known telephone contact of Lands Minister Judith Nabakoba going unanswered even after repeated phone calls.
https://thecooperator.news/amuru-offers-500-acres-of-land-for-industrial-park/
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