Lands Ministry collects UGX 70 Billion in registration fees

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT  | The Lands, Housing and Urban Development Ministry collected shillings 100 billion from land registration fees in the 2018/19 last financial year. This is an increase of over shillings 70 billion from shillings 12 billion collected in the 2012/2013 financial year.

The enhanced revenue collection is attributed to the opening of 21 regional offices across the country with shillings 200 from the World Bank. This means that land related services reached more people compared to when the services were centralized.

Speaking during the 3rd Lands Joint Sector review meeting in the Office of the Prime Minister on Wednesday, the Lands Ministry Permanent Secretary, Dorcus Okalany, said their target is to hit the Shillings 500 billion mark annually once all the 21 Ministry zonal Land offices are fully equipped and operationalized.

Okalany disclosed that the regional offices are currently operating below their capacity due to inadequate personnel and funding.

Early last year, the Lands, Housing and Urban Development Ministry migrated to a stop center at regional level thereby reducing bureaucratic procedures for investors to access land.

She said government was now focusing on putting in place the supportive legal framework to reduce land conflicts and ease access.

“Several policies, laws and bills related to land have been formulated including Landlord and Tenant Bill, Land Acquisition Bill, Physical Planning Act Amendment Bill, among others. These laws will go a long way in guiding government, other parties and agencies on accessing and acquiring land efficiently, equitably and effectively,” she said.

Lands Minister, Betty Amongi called for improved funding to the Ministry to cater for recruitment of technical staff. She said about 54 percent of the 818 positions in the ministry are vacant. These include senior positions like Assistant Commissioners, Commissioners and Directors.

Gideon Badagawa, the keynote speaker and Executive Director Private Sector Foundation Uganda, called for a constitutional review on land ownership to give more powers to government. He argued that planning and land use for public investments will be easily attainable once land is under government control.

“For the country to fix urban challenges like unemployment, housing gap and food insecurity, depends on how properly we plan land use as a country,” said Badagawa.  Adding that “the country should review the constitution about land ownership.”

According to the constitution, Land belongs to the people, which Badagawa argues slows down public investment projects because of issues related to compensation and land fragmentation. He suggested that government should lease land from absentee landlords to stimulate investment and industrialization. He was speaking on the theme: “Industrialization and Job Creation through Planned Land use and Land Tenure Security”.

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