Kampala — Yes, it is a serious matter of grave national concern that the Agriculture Minister of Egypt, Amin Abaza declared to the Al-Ahram newspaper in late August that Uganda gave his country slightly more than two million acres of fertile land to grow wheat.

This revelation serves to further highlight how unfortunate it is that we are living in an environment of unbridled impunity by the state in the name of the national interest.

In today's Uganda, billions of shillings of taxpayers' money have been lost in questionable financial bail-outs like the one extended to regime cronies like Hassan Basajjabalaba.

Billions have been unnecessarily lost in procurement of unworthy military equipment under the cover of the dubious excuse of 'classified expenditure'.

Indeed, every year, Uganda loses Shs500 billion to corruption in public procurement alone. And the waste is not only evident in the mishandling of the liquid assets of this country.

Consider that the one vital resource at our disposal is land, and yet it has lately been the subject of suspicious wheeling and dealing at even the highest levels of government.

A particular case is the 15-acre plot of prime land on which the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence sits but whose title is now in the safe but contentious custody of businessman Sudhir Ruparelia.

We should therefore be concerned when the minister of a foreign government confidently claims that up to 2.2 percent of our fertile lands have been given to them by us.

The concern becomes very grave when the minister responsible for lands, Mr Daniel Omara Atubo appears to be in the dark about any transaction that could have led to this alleged state of affairs. Could someone have quietly sold off the country?

A few years ago, a senior minister in government whispered to some journalists that a private big-money deal was struck with one of the lower Nile countries in which millions of litres of water were released from Lake Victoria through the Jinja dam so that this country could fill its reservoirs for use in a grand irrigation project.

This minister said this partly explains the sharp fall in the level of Lake Victoria and subsequent drop in our hydropower generation capacity. Shocking as this tale may seem, it is not entirely unbelievable in a Uganda where the only remaining thing that our irredeemably dirty politicians respect and worship is money, ill-gotten or otherwise.

All Ugandans must demand an urgent explanation from government about this mysterious two million-acre land give-away.