The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The State House Anti-Corruption Unit and the police are investigating a case in which 10 people allegedly acquired by fraudulent means, titles on land at Lubowa owned by the National Social Security Fund-NSSF.
It is alleged that in 2019, Muhammad Kityo Lubowa, Moses Bogere, Betty Namanya and Daphine Nakanwagi, claiming to have inherited bibanja interests on the land from their parents, applied through the area land committee to the District Land Board of Wakiso for freehold titles.
Detectives attached to the Anti Corruption Unit led by Col Edith Nakalema, state that the accused persons used a private surveyor Patrick Onyango, who is unregistered to fraudulently survey the land and got titles overlapping the title acquired by NSSF in 2003.
The four persons are investigated jointly with Onyango and five other people on accusations of forgery, uttering false documents, obtaining registration by false pretence and conspiracy to commit a felony.
Other suspects are Shaban Kawooya, Steven Mayega, Leonald Kabonge, Damalie Kabenge and Sarah Nalongo Namukasa.
Meanwhile, Lubowa, Bogere and Onyango have been remanded to Kitalya government prison until November 18. They were arraigned before the Magistrates Court at Makindye and denied the accusations.
Prosecutor Harriet Adong told the Court that investigations into the case are still ongoing and asked the court to remand the suspects to allow the state to speed up the investigations without interruptions. The prosecution alleges that on February 25, 2015, while at Ndejje Lubugumu, Makindye Ssabagabo in Wakiso district, the nine individuals and others still at large forged an application for conversion from customary tenure to freehold tenure in respect to land comprised in Kyaddondo Block 269 at Lubowa.
The state contends that in 2019 at the office of the registrar of titles at Wakiso Ministerial Zonal Offices in Wakiso district, Lubowa, Bogere, Namanya and Nakanwagi knowingly and fraudulently uttered a false document to wit an application for conversion from customary tenure to freehold tenure in respect to land at Lubowa purporting to own the land customary.
According to the state, Lubowa, Bogere, Namanya and Nakanwagi wilfully procured themselves registration on a certificate of title for seven plots of land at Lubowa by falsely pretending that they owned the land customary.
According to the charge sheet, between 2015 and 2019 at various places in Wakiso district, Onyango forged a Job Record Jacket (JRJ) in respect to surveying the disputed Lubowa land and that he uttered it purporting to have surveyed under the supervision of Ssembajjwe Henry, a registered surveyor.
The investigations into the matter followed a request by the former Minister of Lands Beti Kamya in a May 10 letter to Col Nakalema stating; “This is a case of double titling of land without adequate due diligence, one of the serious challenges my ministry is struggling with.”
According to Kamya, the accused individuals took the conflict to court for determination and the court ruled in their favour and ordered the ministry of lands to reinstate their titles on the Land Management System from which they had been removed.
“Perhaps what is most glaring is that NSSF claims to have bought the freehold interest in 2003 from Uganda Company Holdings Limited, a foreign company prohibited by law to hold freehold proprietary interest inland, so as in effect Uganda Company Holdings Limited had no valid title in freehold to pass onto NSSF,” Kamya wrote.
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