By Frank KamuntuÂ
Last year we saw a story about church land grabbing in mbale city involving a one Mrs Sheila Akandanaho who hails from the first family.
This land is located in cathedral avenue lane in mbale city.
This land has accommodated Yahweh church ministries for the last 12 years and the Uganda land commision had decided to lease out and as the law says the sitting tenant is the first priority and the church had fully finished the process.
Around the way mbale city board issued a document informing Uganda land commision that this land is for mbale city and they had allocated it to Mrs Sheila Akandanaho and reaching her she denied having interest in grabbing the church land and requested to be removed from the confusion.
At the same time the state minister Hon Sam Mayanja also gave a directive that this land should be given to Mr Zubair Galiwango the brother to The late NRM director Hassan Galiwango, this now became a third party claiming ownership rights of the land.
On several follow ups hon Sam Mayanja denied being part of this yet the letter was signed in his docket.
To cut the whole story short, mbale city officials who have sold every land and houses in the city had now look at available options to finish them up and will soon sell the city offices unless government wakes up.
This land is at the centre and all mafias sees it as an easy task for them to get rich immediately.
The land commission which is aware that the land belongs to them had all proof since the Indians under their group called Gymkhana surrendered this land to the office of the president in 1956 which affirms that the land belongs to Uganda land commission.
And on panic that the first family has interest in it failed to even make a decision and decided to seek guidance from the office of the solicitor general and this was done in early January but upto date there has been no response and the current news indicate that the file has gone missing
City officials in Mbale allegedly falsified documents to assert ownership of the land, despite records showing it was allocated to the Office of the President in 1956, indicating it belongs to the Uganda Lands commission not the city. It’s reported that many government properties and public lands in Mbale have been unlawfully divided up among officials at bargain prices.
After a prolonged legal battle, the land dispute file, initially held at the Ministry of Lands, was transferred to the solicitor General’s Office for further review.
Shockingly, the file has gone missing from the solicitor General’s Office. There are allegations that certain staff members colluded with an individual named Frank, purportedly a State House aide, to abscond with the file.
Despite the missing file, the solicitor General who was expected to provide an opinion on the matter is not aware that this file is missing because the corrupt in the office were paid to hide it, but where does this leave our country if even in the solicitor general’s office something can go missing and no one bothers.
Though it seems evident that the land rightfully belongs to the Uganda land commision and it’s the land commission to lease it out not mbale city which had earlier forged documents and shared it without the consultation of the relevant authorities.
