Al-Mahdi Ssenkabirwa
8 November 2009
A family claiming ownership of part of Mulago Hospital land has vowed not vacate saying it genuinely secured a release offer from Uganda Land Commission.
Mr Swaib Balayo, a son to Ms Tolita Nabude, who claims ownership of Plot 61, Block 29 on Mawanda Road, said said on Friday that the ULC allocated the land to his mother on May 6 and they were in the process of acquiring the land title.
"ULC under minute 13/2009 (a) (304) of May 6 allocated that land to us and we possess the authentic documents.
Since Mulago and ULC are sister institutions, let them sort out their issues but for us we are not ready to surrender it," Mr Balayo said in an interview with Sunday Monitor.
ULC is mandated by the Constitution to be the custodian of all government lands in the country.
The contested piece of land, which is a quarter an of acre, has generated controversy between the family and the hospital authorities.
Last Month, the hospital authorities ordered for the pulling down of a fence which was erected around the plot and property that were on site got vandalised.
According to documents obtained from the ULC, Prof. George Kakoma sold the land (plot 61) to Ms Obua on May 16, 1974 and before she sold it to ULC on August 3, 2001.
But Ms Alison Kantarama, the Mulago Hospital assistant commissioner for support services insists that the land belongs to the hospital and they were in a process of fencing it off with iron sheets to deter those claiming ownership from trespassing on it.
When contacted yesterday ,Ms Obua confirmed selling the land to the hospital.
"As far as Iam concerned, that land belongs to the hospital and no one owes the other .Whoever comes up now and claim ownership should produce documented evidence" she said.
The 92-year old hospital sits on a 60-acre piece of land which houses numerous departments and institutes. But some of the hospital land is untitled.
Some of the mushrooming apartments surrounding the hospital are reportedly occupying land belonging to the health facility taking advantage of the hospital authorities' reluctance to survey it.
It is not only Mulago Hospital which is in this dilemma but many other government institutions are facing the same.
Parliament has also not been having a land title until last September when it finally secured one. Construction of a new parliamentary chamber had delayed due to failure to secure the land title. Last August, officials from the ministry of defence told Parliament that 50 of its land across the country was untitled and was on the verge of being grabbed by unscrupulous individuals.
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