Kampala — THE Government is to make it compulsory to have approved plans before constructing any building in the country.

"We want the whole country from national level down to the trading centre to be planned well to ensure orderly and sustainable urban and rural development," lands, housing and urban development minister Omara Atubo said.

Atubo was presenting the Physical Planning Bill to the parliamentary committee on physical infrastructure.

Atubo said the new law seeks to revise the Town and Country Planning Act developed by the British colonial rulers before independence in 1962.

He said the Act was outdated because the population of Uganda was about five million people then but is now 30 million.