Solomon Muyita
7 April 2008
Entebbe — Vice President Gilbert Bukenya and a British investor are involved in a wrangle over piece of prime land on the shores of Lake Victoria at Garuga, near Entebbe.
This is one in a series of unfolding land disputes involving Prof. Bukenya. In one of the controversies, Uganda's VP was recently sued over a residential property near the British High Commission at Kamwokya, Kampala.
In the latest development, on Thursday last week, Ms Samantha Moray, a British investor in the tourism industry, last week sued Prof. Bukenya at the High Court in Kampala. She accuses the VP of encroaching on the land she legally holds a 99-year lease at Garuga (sic), Kagolomolo Ssabbadu Sub County, by 6,507 square metres (over an acre).
This is the place where Prof. Bukenya, constructed his palatial home, which he unveiled some time last year at an occasion graced by President Museveni.
Ms Moray, who says she has lived in Uganda for 27 years, told Daily Monitor yesterday that she is putting up several cottages on the land to act as lodges for tourists, which is part of her investment programmes in local tourism.
She claims to have paid Shs50 million to Dr James Kajubi Mulondo for the Mailo land on a 99-year lease-hold basis in September 2000.
The complainant not only accuses the VP of trespassing on her land, but also of harassing, intimidating, and interfering with her peaceful and quiet enjoyment of land measuring 4.04 hectares at Busiro Block 451 at Plots 13 and 14.
"This is quite a sensitive matter and the big man (Prof. Bukenya) is quite angry," Ms Moray said by telephone yesterday. She said that in the last eight years she has been talking to Prof. Bukenya about the encroachment and that he has told her things amounting to intimidation, which "I cannot repeat publicly."
Documents show that Prof. Bukenya is already engaging in the construction of permanent structures.
They include a building and a gate, blocking the road to her land. His cows graze on her land and there is a camp of soldiers too, all of which amount to willful acts of trespass.
Prof. Bukenya's press secretary Linda Nabusayi told Daily Monitor that she was not aware of the land conflict, and that she needed some time to confirm the issue with her boss. She however, dismissed claims that soldiers had been deployed on anybody's land.
"All I know is that the VP is entitled to military guards wherever he goes. There are soldiers permanently deployed at his residence at Garuga whose job is to take care of his security. I am not aware of soldiers deployed on another person's land by the VP," she said.
The VP's lawyer, Mr Dan Wandera Ogalo said he would only comment on the issue after reading the documents on the said file. His law firm: Victoria Advocates & Legal Consultants, however, wrote earlier on March 13 that "Prof. Bukenya has no intention of grabbing" land and that he has not forced himself on any land.
Ms Moray claims her trouble with the vice president started in 2001 by a Wakiso District Staff Surveyor, Mr Joseph Batume Ssentamu, who instead of opening the boundaries between the two, erroneously changed it to encroach on Ms Moray's land.
She says the Wakiso official eventually admitted the error he made, but she is shocked that the VP is still taking advantage of the error to trespass on land that legally belongs to Ms Moray.
Further evidence indicates that both Ms Moray and Prof. Bukenya later appointed an independent surveyor, Joshua Ssentamu, who confirmed in a survey report dated February 21, 2006 that indeed the latter was encroaching on Ms Moray's land.
She, however, says Prof. Bukenya frustrated the final exercise of mapping the common boundary, when he appeared at the site with soldiers and allegedly chased away the independent surveyor on August 2, 2008.
The Briton contends in a suit he filed through Byenkya, Kihika & Co. Advocates, that Prof. Bukenya "has no right whatsoever to interfere with her quiet and peaceful possession" of the land.
The VP was on Friday given 15 days within which to file his defence.
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