Issues of Land Use and Land Management

   Uganda Map  »  Uganda Wiki  »  Free Uganda  »  National Land Policy  »  Issues of Land Use and Land Management

Ownership Rights

26.Although the recently-launched National Land Use Policy has made attempts to harmonize aspects related to regulation of land use as regards standards and guidelines for sustainable management of land resources, it was incapable, by its very nature, of dealing with tenure issues that have bogged down most of the related land use sectors and land-based natural resources sectors, thus making implementation of land use policies a likely nightmare.

27.For instance, vesting wetlands in the State in trust for the citizens of Uganda, without sorting out the ownership rights that existed at the time of vesting, bogged down the implementation of the wetlands policy to some extent as some people and communities still hold legal and valid titles to these wetlands resources. Enforcing wise land use will not suffice, by itself, and evicting people and communities that legally own these wetlands before the 1995 Constitution, without compensation, may amount to violation of their land rights without due to the constitutionally-entrenched principle of “sanctity of property”.

The Land Administration System

28.As corruption eats away performance standards and provides cracks for fraud to flourish, land services delivery has become slow, cumbersome, frustrating and is too costly to the public. The land administration system is now moribund and dysfunctional in many areas. It is bedeviled by corruption, inadequately resourced and performing poorly in service delivery. Decentralized services are very thin on the ground and have failed to perform to their expectations. The dual system of land administration (statutory and customary/traditional) needs to be harmonized and rationalized to remove the existing gaps, conflicts, confusion and overlapping mandates.

Common Natural Resources

29.The 1995 Constitution created a trust over specified important natural resources (natural lakes, rivers, wetlands, forest reserves, game reserves and national parks) by vesting them in the State to hold in trust and protect for the common good of all citizens of Uganda. The legal effect of these provisions was to remove these important natural resources from the absolute ownership of the government and vested them in the public realm. The Land Act explicitly prohibits the Government, or local government, from leasing out or otherwise alienating any of these natural resources, except by way of a concession, licence or permit.

30.The Ugandan public has generally been concerned about how the State has misused and abused trust beneficiary relationship. In the recent past, the State has attempted to abrogate the fiduciary relationship between the State and the citizens created under the Constitution and reaffirmed under the Land Act. The public has been concerned about the abuse of the trust by the State and the general administrative abuses in the natural resources management. The policy has to fix identifiable loopholes and any existing contradictions in the natural resources management laws and provide for use and management of these public trust resources on the basis of well-established principles of the public trust doctrine.

Land for Investment

31.The Government has a duty to attract private investment both domestic and foreign, into productive sectors of the economy. This duty includes creating an enabling investment climate, including facilitating investors to access land. One of the major concerns in the land sector today, is the allocation of government land, public land, and natural resources held by the State in trust for the citizens, for private investment. Such land allocations have taken place amidst an environment of incoherent and/or non-existent and non- implemented policies or non-transparent systems and processes. This in effect, weakened institutions governing use and management of these lands and natural resources.

32.In most cases, the allocations have not considered the ecological, environmental, economic and social impacts, as such allocations have resulted in displacement of the vulnerable land and natural-resource-dependent communities, whose rights of land access, food security and livelihoods are lost. The primary question for the land policy is how to achieve objective of private sector investment promotion without compromising land rights of the vulnerable sections of society as well as the environment. Secondly, what safeguards should be put in place to ensure that for any land held by the government, or in trust by the State, allocation of such land is carried out in a transparent and accountable manner and in public interest?

Idle Land-Holding?

33.Currently, plenty of land lies idle and undeveloped both in rural and urban areas of Uganda. In effect, there is no urge, on the part of holders of such land, to develop it because they are not compelled to do so. At the same time, many people in Uganda do not have enough (or any) land, even though they may have the ability to invest in its development.

34.In the course of receipt of submissions from the public, it was evident that many people were opposed to the practice of holding large tracks of land for prestige or speculative purposes while serious developers, or landless people are without land. In order to compel the holders of such idle and undeveloped land, to put it to use, the matter of land taxation needs to be explored. However, in furtherance of this land use obligation, great care has to be taken not to levy taxes on those who preserve part of their land for the purpose of protecting and conserving the environment.

35.For the National Land Policy, principles to do with taxation of land need to be squarely addressed. For instance, would it be all land to be taxed or would it be only idle or un-utilized land, vacant land, or un-developed land? In addition, such land for taxation purposes would take into account due regard for social protection and disability. Furthermore, it has to be discerned whether such a tax would be effective in regulating speculative accumulation of land through a national tax or a local government tax.