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Uganda: Country Needs Law On 'Bonna Bafune Ettaka'
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The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Mulindwa Muwonge
A struggle of the people out of bondage is highly ironical - full of betrayals, contradictions and many mistakes. The greatest danger in African countries is losing knowledge of their own culture. Today President Museveni is embroiled in scuffles with landlords over evictions of peasants.
I am one of the people who came out to strongly oppose the Land Bill (1997) and President Museveni was mad about this. I recall how my then employers at CBS radio panicked and almost sacked me as presenter.
"In case of a risk you will be the prey not the station," they wrote in an internal memo. They simply looked on as I was summoned and interrogated by police on orders of then CID director, Chris Bakiza.
I felt betrayed, but thank God, I was soon out of bother when I had an opportunity to directly speak to the President - I clearly presented the ground of my opposition to the Bill.
I later learnt that the draftsmen of the Land Bill were staunch Baganda at the seat of the Buganda power house, Mengo. I had to tactfully withdraw from the debate and wait for the law. I concluded that the big shots in Buganda had lost knowledge of their own culture and made big mistakes. This was sheer betrayal of the people they lead.
Land remains a treasure, owned by the rich as an economic venture. A law which pre-determines ground rent is risky, as it encourages landlords to sell their land to people who have the means to evict the squatters.
Land buyers won't care how long a squatter has lived on the land peacefully. About 85 per cent of the people who participated in the making of the Land Act (1998) were landlords.
That law states in the introductory paragraphs that it provides for the "tenure, ownership and management of land; to amend and consolidate the law relating to tenure, ownership and management of land; and to provide for other related or incidental matters".
The words, tenure, ownership and management were clearly used to refer to the rich (landlords), while incidental matters refers to the tenants. The law claims to have vested all land in Uganda "in the citizens of Uganda" under the customary, freehold, mailo; and leasehold tenure systems of ownership.
But for goodness sake, how can someone claim that such a law is pro-people when it is silent about the 95 per cent land occupants who do not fall in the four land tenure? These so-called Bibanja owners are not mentioned anywhere when it comes to owning land.
Uganda needed a law that accommodates all land occupants, but the law makers surprisingly took a lot of time categorising occupants. A person who has occupied land by virtue of the repealed Busuulu and Envujjo Law of 1928, Toro Landlord and Tenant Law of 1937 is referred to as a lawful occupant.
It is amazing that our lawmakers did not consider the fact that the population of the time of the two laws had almost tripled as they debated the 1998 law. How did they plan for us who were not present in the 1920s or 30s? How could they endorse a law classifying some people as Bibanja holders when they knew that kibanja is not land?
Bonafide are, according to the law, persons who before the coming into force of the 1995 Constitution occupied and utilized or developed any land unchallenged by the registered owner for 12 years or more; or those settled on land by government, it's agents or local authorities.
The law here pretends to be protecting the tenants when it gives options on how they can be evicted. While the land tribunals were limping over inadequate facilitation, President Museveni set up a parallel office in State House under the command of Ms Getrude Njuba, also to arbitrate in land matters.
One wonders what capacity the people in this office have to interpret legal matters relating to land. Law makers, it is high time you made "land for all (bonna bafune ettaka)".
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Mr Muwonge is a journalist working with Super FM in Kampala
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