Reports of tension between tenants and landlords have been common in the media. The Ministry of Lands, Housing & Urban Development notes these incidents with a sense of foreboding as indeed we may yet witness more of the same. The tide has now turned and landlords are becoming vulnerable.
How are tenants supposed to relate with their new landlords who have acquired land titles and want to know the tenants on their land, let alone open boundaries to know the extent of their land, if these actions may lead to their death?
How can we resolve and expect to untangle the challenge of multiple rights on the same piece of land when the one with inferior rights (tenants) is chasing and hacking to death the one with superior rights (landlords)?
The 1995 Constitution of Uganda provides under Article 237(1) that land in Uganda belongs to the citizens of Uganda and shall vest in them in accordance with customary, freehold, mailo and leasehold tenure. A tenant by occupancy on either mailo, freehold or leasehold tenure holding enjoys security of occupancy on the land. A tenant by occupancy is that lawful or bonafide occupant as defined by section 29 of the Land Act Cap. 227.
Any tenant who does not fall under the above categories is an unlawful occupant (squatter), therefore, his/her occupancy (tenancy) is illegal and not protected by the law.
Incidences of occupants (tenants) disregarding the law and basically ‘evicting’ landowners are rife. Yet the two categories need to work together to sort out or resolve the challenge of multiple rights on the same piece of land through the lawful or the bonafide occupant buying out their holding(s) from the registered landowner or coming to an understanding whereby the land is shared between the lawful or bonafide tenant and registered landowner in a mutually agreed land-sharing arrangement.
In such situation, the tenant receives a land title and the land ceases to have multiple rights. This would maintain harmony among the landlords and tenants. The ways of going about the two methods is provided for in the 2013 National Land Policy and other available guidelines on administration and management of land.
A landowner owns the land forever, if his or her holding falls under freehold or mailo tenure. The landowner may sub-lease, mortgage, pledge or sell the land without giving the first option of purchase to the tenants. However, the new landowner who buys the land must be introduced to the lawful and bonafide occupants and must respect the interests he/she finds on the land.
If the landowner wishes to dispose of land that is also claimed by a lawful occupant he may give the lawful or bonafide occupants the first option to buy out his/her holding(s).
Lawful and bonafide occupants enjoy security of occupancy. They must pay annual ground rent, which the government has made to be nominal to the landowner.
They may acquire a Certificate of Occupancy by applying for it through the landlord. With the permission of the landlord, they may sublet or subdivide the land they occupy. When they end the occupancy, they return it to the landlord or may sell to another person with the consent of the landlord.
There are occupants who are not protected by the law. They are sometimes referred to as squatters or illegal occupants. The law provides that such persons need to take reasonable steps to look for the landowner and negotiate with the owner concerning their stay on the land.
The Lands ministry condemns strongly the criminal acts of squatters who hacked to death the mailo land owners of a 322-acre land on which they were settled. If the purported claimants to the land had no documents, the ‘squatters’ should have reported the matter to the authorities.
In addition, because tenants thought they were under threat of eviction, they should have alerted the office of the Resident District Commissioner as head of the security committee in the district, instead of opting to hack the land owners to death.
Arising out of the unfortunate Kiboga incident, some leaders of the area have wrongly placed the blame on the Lands ministry, claiming that officials of the ministry identify land whose leases have expired or are about to expire, which they then lease and evict squatters! This is not possible because issues of land are decentralised and the ministry, therefore, has no powers to allocate or lease such land.
The Uganda Land Commission, a self-accounting body is a controlling authority but only over government land and not mailo land as the land in question was. The law that governs the issuance of leases provides that once a lease expires, the previous lease holder is given the first option to have it renewed before it can be allocated to another.
The ministry finds it useful to inform the public that the non-renewal of the mandate of the Committee on Illegal Land Evictions was because of a legal opinion from the Attorney General’s chambers that the committee was usurping powers of courts and land administration institutions as provided for in the law.
Finally, all the above described possible interventions have been provided for by government and are contained in the National Land Policy and the various laws governing the management of land.
The missing link is the sensitisation of the citizens on these provisions and their rights and obligations as contained within the law. Unfortunately, the Lands ministry that is mandated to do this does not have the budget to undertake that sensitisation as wholesomely as it ought to do.
Mr Obbo is the spokesperson, Ministry of Lands, Housing & Urban Development. dennisfo2002@yahoo.com
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