Minister Nabakooba delivers 2,000 freehold land titles to Lango Sub-region processed under Lands Ministry’s SLAC Program
Drake Nyamugabwa
The Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba has handed over 2,000 land titles in LangoSub-region following the government’s deliberate move to process land titles under the Systematic Land Adjudication and Certification (SLAC) program with support from the World Bank, through the Competitiveness Enterprise Development Project (CEDP).
Minister Nabakooba was received at Apworocero Primary School, Minakulu Town Council, Oyam District where she handed over the freehold titles which have been processed by her ministry. She was received by the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi, Woman MP of Oyam District and other local leaders.
“Utilise the land and use it safely. Use your titles to do productive activities and not to get bank loans. To the new registered landowners, I urge you to use your titles to generate more wealth now that it is safe from disputes. Avoid fragmenting and subdividing land because it becomes less productive” she told residents.
She advised the residents to safeguard their land and shy away from demarcating it for productive use.
“Do not sell your land but put the certificates to productive use through accessing credit in order to transform your families and the nation at large. Guard your titles jealously. This is the beginning of a new generation of landlords powered by the government of Uganda,” she said
The minister said that the Lira MZO has many pending applications to be processed and they have put in place measures to quicken the processing which includes streamlining the land titling procedures to enhance the speed-up of the process of issuing new titles at the Lira Ministry Zonal Office and the Data Processing Centre in Entebbe.
“We are going to work hard to deliver the remaining titles. I am instructing the officers from my ministry to share the lists of the titles brought today with the local leaders so that they (local leaders) can share the same with the locals,” she said, urging all those that have not yet paid the Shs72,000/= as registration fees to do so to get their titles.
She added that: “My team is going to stay in the region until all titles have been given out. I expect a report from the RDC and mayor once this exercise has been completed in the region. I want to thank our development partner, the World Bank, other stakeholders, and interested parties for supporting the government to achieve its pledges to the people to secure land titles.”
The Project Coordinator CEDP, Johnson Mukaga, Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development said that for the Oyam circuit, the ministry has over 34,000 applications approved for titling in the DPC.
Out of this number, the ministry has printed 2,000 certificates of title for the applicants who have paid the mandatory statutory fees of Shs50,000 for assurance of the title and Shs15,000 for deed plans.
“This means that over 32,000 applicants have not yet paid the statutory fees for land titling. This has a very big impact on the ministry’s plans to effectively and systematically generate and print the certificates of title for the beneficiaries in this region, though we have now started to put a government charge as an encumbrance for non-payment,” he said.
He added that for the ministry to achieve the project targets of completing the generation and printing of the remaining over 32,000 titles the beneficiaries should pay the mandatory fees for the ministry to expedite and complete the exercise in time.
