Bishop Desmond Tutu is
quoted to have at one time said that, “When the missionaries came to Africa
they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray’. We closed our
eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land”. That in summary
is the story of land and property ownership, of those that are governing
vis-à-vis those that are governed. That story of land being taken by those more
superior continues to unfold before our eyes with little or no recourse. We
only need to go back a century or so ago to remember how the land owners in
Buganda and the rest of the country were brought to their knees as the British
superiors dished out their land the way they favored. Wasn’t that the beginning
of our land problems? Land has always been a very emotive issue and this should
not spring a surprise in us, it is understandable. Its value appreciates with
each passing day but besides that, sit and imagine that you wake up one day
with nowhere to sit and belong, with no place to rest and be happy, to grow
your food and eke a living. It is a sad tale that humanity should abhor with
the greatest of passions.
Only last week the
Deputy Attorney General, tabled The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that
seeks to give government the power to compulsorily acquire people’s land and
deposit money in court where a property owner disputes valuation. The proposal
also gives government power to take over possession immediately after the
payment is made. This will seek to move away from the Supreme Court decision of
Uganda National Roads Authority vs. Asumani Irumba where it was held that
before the compulsory acquisition of land for the development for government
projects is effected, the owner of the property must receive prompt payment of
fair and adequate compensation. The Justices of the highest court in the land
accordingly declared section 7 of the Land Acquisition Act unconstitutional in
as far as it permitted the government to take possession of land upon making of
an award of compensation but before payment. Should this Bill pass (which is
most likely) I am afraid it may spell doom on the ordinary people of our
beloved country.
The talk since the
start of President Museveni’s fifth term of office has been the prospect of
taking this country to middle status by the year 2020. Our per capita income is
currently at about $780 and for us to get to $1036 which is the lowest per
capita income for any country in middle-income, we need a growth rate of about
12% a year factoring in our population growth of 3% which brings the figure to 15%.
The economy has to double from $26b to $47b in the next four years. With all
that in mind the president issued strategic guidelines that will drive the
country to a middle-income status and a good infrastructural network was top on
the agenda. The facts show that 95% of cargo freight in Uganda is moved by road
and according to a 2015 report on infrastructure and investment in Africa by
the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), poor
infrastructure is slowing down the continent’s economic growth. With all that
in mind it is conceivable that development has to take place, and it has to
take place on land and part of it is owned by private individuals. The amendment
may be a good one but for all purposes and intent I think it isn’t good for our
country.
The government proposes
that when there is dispute in valuation, the money be deposited in court as
work goes on, on the disputed property. I think this would be unfair and
inequitable on the side of the private owner because there is a possibility
he/she may be left with nowhere to stand given that the money will not have
been paid to them and the property will have been taken. These are people who
may have nowhere to turn to at the end of the day. However that is not to say
that development should not go on but I believe the capacity to care is what
gives life its deepest significance; we cannot claim to be pursuing radical
development plans at the expense of the people who gave you their mandate. The
judicial process in Uganda is a long and tedious one, land cases take a very
long time before being settled, is the suggestion then that one should be
waiting for ten years before he gets compensated for what rightfully belongs to
them? Instead of making such an amendment the government should have thought it
wise to set up tribunals or special courts that listen to these disputes in a
shorter period of time, say 30 days. There both parties will have scored.
My other issue with
this amendment is the extreme distrust that we have for the government of the
day. For isn’t it said that a man who has messed up with your finger cannot be
trusted with your arm. Media outlets are always carrying stories of massive and
incessant land grabbing orchestrated by senior government officials, locals who
have had government projects pass through their land have also been voicing
their cries of how their promised payments have never materialized. If
individuals cannot be compensated with a clear law of prior compensation in
place then God forbid what will happen after it is no longer in place? The
commission of inquiry set up a few months ago to look into matters of land has
unearthed multitudinous cases of people, prominent or otherwise using the
system to deprive the poor of their land. If it is this same system that is
still going to be operational even after the passing of the Bill then Ugandans
have a right to be worried. It is my worry and it is every Ugandans’ worry
(atleast for those without power) that the new law may be misused or used to the
advantage of the powerful to cause massive and spontaneous land grabbing and also
spur widespread landlessness among Ugandans.
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