The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Fort Portal, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Some of the residents of Katoge housing estate in Fort Portal have petitioned Uganda Lands Commission-ULC over a fraudulent move to unlawfully evict them from their premises. The estate under the preserve of the Uganda Lands Commission along Queen’s lane in Kagote ward, Central division comprises over 21 plots duly occupied by Fort Portal city employees and other tenants.
According to reliable sources, in November 2020, the Fort Portal high court delivered a ruling directing Fort Portal municipality to turn over ownership of the premises to ULC. The ruling was affirming the August 9th, 2010 government policy to divest the same premises to the sitting tenants/civil servants to occupy the pool houses.
However, the residents say that a group of individuals went ahead and requested to buy off the premises without informing the sitting tenants who are legally supposed to be given first priority. It was from this background Sylvia Kihunde, Ben Musinguzi Mutooro, John Wesley Tugumisirize, and 3 others petitioned the ULC through their lawyers of Karungi and Partners Advocates requesting the Commission to immediately halt the exercise of divesting the pool houses.
“Please note that in line with the decision of the court and the avoidance of doubt, the sitting tenants are all those who were in occupation of the pool houses before filing the suit in court. The letter dated 29th February 2022, to your esteemed office to allocate offers to persons who were not in occupation of the suit properties before 2011 and not plaintiffs in the suit, amounts to contempt of court and is thus illegal” the letter reads partly.
During a public hearing organized by the Inspectorate of Government against corruption in Fort Portal, Sylvia Kihunde, who has been occupying the premises since 2010, told deputy IGG that some of the names paraded as sitting tenants are not known to them.
Ben Musinguzi Mutooro, another resident says that as a sitting tenant for the last 12 years, he was shocked to learn that the block where he resides had been allocated to a deceased person in the name of Molly Mutazindwa. Annah Twinomugisha, the Deputy IGG who was in Fort for a public hearing, said the matter has been forwarded to the IGG’s office for investigation and will be handled appropriately to ascertain how non-sitting tenants and deceased people were allocated premises and given an opportunity to acquire the blocks.
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