A team from the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development (MLHUD), led by the focal minister, Judith Nabakooba, has met with the Ugandan Anglican church leaders to lay out strategies for the registration of all church land in Uganda.
The meeting held at Namirembe Provincial Secretariat on June 21, 2024, with attendance from all 39 dioceses of the Church of Uganda, was aimed at training church leaders on land management and protection.
Nabakooba asked church leaders to identify all the land across the country that belongs to the Church of Uganda.
“This will help our team identify land with legal documents and process documents to have the unregistered land titled,” Nabakooba said.
She asked the church leaders to get all registered trustees on the land and update files and records of all consent forms.
“Keep a keen eye on the small pieces of land in communities that belong to the Church of Uganda. There is even land that was abandoned by the church a long time ago, and it has been encroached on,” she added.
The minister revealed that no occupants will be chased from the land but will instead be registered and given certificates of occupancy to allow them to pay the nominal ground rent, ‘Busuulu’.
She noted that most of the church-donated land has been taken over by estate owners’ relatives because they don’t want to adhere to the commitments made by their great-grandparents. She advised, however, that such land cases would be taken to court to be resolved at once.
In instances where church land is occupied by institutions, the ministry has promised to ensure that landlord-tenant harmonious relations are restored.
Nabakooba cautioned leaders against corruption and asked them to report any evil deeds to her office or the permanent secretary in case they prevailed.
Balaam Muheebwa, the acting provincial secretary of the Church of Uganda, pledged to provide all the necessary support that will be needed, adding that the registration will minimize conflicts between the church and the communities.
“The church still has land that is not surveyed and titled. We therefore appeal to the government for help,” Muheebwa said.
On March 5, 2024, Nabakooba met the house of bishops at a retreat conference at the Lweeza Training and Conference Centre in Wakiso district and asked them to create a team that would work with the ministry throughout the exercise.
The minister said that the registration would shield church land from grabbers and fraudsters, noting how she had already briefed the ministry’s PS and the technical personnel that the call to have church land formalized was timely.
