State House and a host of peasants in the mid-western District of Hoima are locked in a bitter row over ownership of some eight square miles of land, Parliament heard yesterday.

The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee heard that although the said land was reportedly donated to State House by Hoima Local Council as far back as 2003, residents on the contested land later petitioned the district land tribunal, with claims that their grazing land had illegally been given away, and obtained a favourable ruling against State House and the local council.

While the chairman of the parliamentary committee said they were investigating whether the land was genuinely given to President Museveni, the President's Legal Adviser, Mr Fox Odoi, who was appearing before the Committee together with a host of other State House officials, insisted that the land was a "donation to the Presidency".

"We genuinely acquired this land because it was a donation to the Presidency," Mr Odoi said. "Some of the local people in the area later took the matter to the tribunal claiming that it was a public grazing area. But we have appealed to the High Court."

He added: "This land belongs to us and we are free to use it as we want because it was donated to the Presidency. However, Mr Chairman this matter is before court and I don't know whether it will not be prejudice for us to discuss this issue."

The wrangle puts State House under the spotlight at a time when President Museveni is pushing through controversial land law reforms designed to make it harder for landlords to evict tenants from their land. Several communities that own land communally for grazing and agriculture oppose plans to put such land under the partial control of the lands minister.

Mr Odoi told Daily Monitor that the land is located in Kyangwali Sub-county, in Buhanguzi County, an area that is apparently close to the Albertine Valley in which oil deposits have been found.

However, Mr Museveni's legal aide said it would be "primitive" to suggest that there were ulterior motives in the Presidency's quest for ownership of the contested land. "This land was given to the Presidency long before there was anything to do with oil there," he said by telephone yesterday, "these are primitive insinuations." Oil exploration in western Uganda is believed to have started in earnest in 1989.

The controversy comes amid reports of a land rush in Bunyoro sub-region following the discovery of oil in June 2006. Mr Yefero Mugyenyi, the Hoima District Land Board chairman, told Daily Monitor yesterday that although his board "has no record whatsoever of land donated to the President", he would be "glad to hear from Mr Odoi to satisfy to us where they got that land."

"The local councils have never had ownership of that land," he added. "It is public land and the council has nothing to do with allocation of land."

The sticky issue was picked up by the parliamentary committee from observations in the Auditor General's report for the year ended June 2004, in Shs3.5 million was paid to Mr Odoi, in his capacity as the President's Private Secretary-Legal to survey and register land in Hoima.

"There is however, no evidence that this land was surveyed and registered," the Auditor General's report reads in part. "Besides a letter from LC- 1 of that area states that this land was sold off by someone from Masindi. I am not aware what action is being taken to secure this land." The Auditor General had also recommended that State House follows up the land in question to ensure that the necessary land titles are secured.

State House's determination to acquire the land in question comes amid bitter land wrangles in Hoima and other parts of western Uganda especially between the Balalo, a pastoralist community, and cultivators who accuse the former of encroaching on their land in search for water and pasture.

The reports also come at a time when Mr Museveni is pushing for the passing of the Land (Amendment) Bill, 2007, a sticky piece of legislation his government insists was designed to halt wide spread illegal evictions in the country.

The draft Bill which is before Parliament also hands down a seven-year jail term to a landlord who 'illegally' evicts a tenant and also criminalises illegal occupancy. The Bill has attracted widespread criticism.

Committee Chairman Nandala Mafabi (FDC, Budadiri West) said: "It's inappropriate for State House to pursue this land yet President Museveni is fighting for the landless. This land should be left to the local people since the government interest is to empower them to benefit from Bonna Bagagawale (Prosperity for All) by using land as a factor of production."

Mr Mafabi later told journalists: "State House has told us that the matter is also before the High Court, but as a committee we are interested in getting the truth and whether this land was truly donated to President Museveni as they would have us believe. If it's true as Mr Odoi explained to us, then there will be no case for us to pursue but we don't want our people to lose their land through unclear circumstances."

Mr Odoi submitted a judgment by the Hoima District Land Tribunal to the committee for further scrutiny. He was in the company of State House Comptroller Richard Muhinda, who had requested Mr Odoi to give details about the standoff.