Govt Plans to Issue Titles for All Customary Land
Date 2015/10/26 1:03:06 | Topic: Uganda
| Uganda will use part of the $54 million concessional loan it received from the World Bank to start registering customary land owners.
Uganda has since 2010 been implementing a World Bank project to ease access to information on land by eliminating paper titles, which mostly focused on freehold owners.
Security of tenure for customary ownership of land would guard against land grabbing that has become common, as foreign companies and governments displace the poor families in Africa in the ongoing search for minerals or large scale farming.
Robert Opio, acting commissioner for land use regulation and compliance, said the pilot project of registering customary land will start in Apach district in northern Uganda. He added that the government has already purchased the necessary tools for mapping.
The government will in pilot phase, map, survey and register about 600 communal land associations in Apach district.
Mr Opio said depending on how the outcome of the project, the government will then start sourcing for funds to complete this venture.
Uganda and many African countries, among them Kenya and Tanzania have been accused of discriminating against communal land owners in issuing of ownership documents.
Experts say African governments have not mapped or registered land owned by communities under the customary land tenure.
As demand for land by multinationals increases, it is increasingly becoming easier for governments to grab it from the poorest population on the continent.
Shadrack Omondi, chairman of Africa Region International Land Coalition steering committee, says most land held under customary tenure in Africa has not been secured with land titles.
"Most of the land in Africa is known to be under customary tenure, but the exact percentage is not recorded because most of it is not mapped, demarcated or documented," he says.
In East Africa, it is only in Rwanda where land is individualised; in Kenya, about 70 per cent of land is owned under the customary land tenure, while in Tanzania the process of documenting and mapping is ongoing. But experts say most of land in Tanzania is owned by communities under customary tenure.
For instance, Batwa community that used to inhabit the forests of south western Uganda, were pushed out of their homes without compensation to make way for a national game park. Banyoro in Buliisa are being displaced to pave the way for oil exploration and the Acholi, who after 20 years of civil war, have endured fights over land with the government.
In addition, Karamojong, could remain homeless after mineral exploration licenses were issued for 62 per cent of the over 27,000 square kilometres of land in the area.
Besides lying in the oil belt, Karamoja is also home to confirmed deposits of several minerals including gold, limestone, uranium, aluminium, marble, graphite, gypsum, iron, wolfram, nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium and tin.
Eddie Nsamba Gayiiya, a land economist and former Uganda government chief valuer says the customary land tenure system in Karamoja has partly fuelled land grabs, some led by government, which now holds large chunks under the National Forest Authority and the Uganda Wildlife Authority for conservation purposes.
No title deeds
"Only 20 per cent of the land area in Karamoja is held by the community," he says.
This is happening at a time when the Karimojong have no land titles or at the very least, certificates of customary ownership so that they can get compensated for loss of land, which they mostly use for pastoralism.
Karamoja is Uganda's poorest region and registers deaths every year due to hunger.
It has failed to get the 3 per cent in mining royalties, which is guaranteed under Ugandan laws, because government always demands proof of ownership of the land. Without titles or certificates of ownership, Karamoja cannot access this money to at least feed itself.
The government concedes there have been gaps in addressing these shortcomings especially within the district administrations in Karamoja and the oil-rich Albertine region, which have not had land registrars for long periods.
"A registrar is essentially a lawyer, and there are not many lawyers that can agree to work in those far flung areas," says Mr Opio.
He blamed the failure to provide security of land tenure on lack of prioritisation and the fact that some government officials benefit from the chaos that is generated due to lack of institutional capacity.
"If it was an issue of lacking personnel, government would at least form communal land associations and area land committees starting from the village since most of these people would be volunteers," said Mr Gayiiya.
Lack of such committees to verify ownership before government can give away land to investors leads to such cases as the one in Amuru District, northern Uganda, where a single visit by a judge was enough for him to conclude that lack of occupancy meant 40,000 hectares of land were publicly owned.
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