Why Land Reform is Essential in Uganda.

Kintu Nyago, Uganda’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Mission in New York recently wrote about the need to resolve the land Mailo crisis. This is one of the biggest transformation challenges that the country has and cannot easily be resolved because of the nature of the law, the vested interests and the inability of Kibanja holders to mobilize themselves. I recall an article by the Rt. Hon. Kintu Musoke, the former Prime Minister of Uganda in the weekly topic sometime in the late 1980s. The article was entitled “Akaliba akendo...” This is a kiganda proverb. He was describing the 1900 agreement signed between the British Government and the Kabaka of Buganda.

Looking back more than 100 years ago, what were the negotiating abilities of the Uganda government then. Today, the negotiation power of many African countries is very low. I know that even a country like Japan in 1986 at the New York Plaza was forced by the Americans to revalue its currency to enable Americans balance its trade deficit with japan.

The British government was in the formative stage in administering Uganda and found the administrative structures of Buganda and its clan system a very well organized and effective system. However, they introduced among other things the Mailo land system as part of reforming and modernizing Buganda. One square mile of land was given to chiefs to create a landed gentry in Buganda similar to that of Britain.  The land prior to allocation was owned by the clans (ebika) through a collective ownership system. This of course did not give title at that time to the owners and it would prove difficult to identify an owner since the land was owned collectively. The square mile gave rise to the word Mailo land as we know it today.  Mailo land is common only in Buganda with a few exceptions in other parts of the country. Since the land was owned by families and their clans. The British government introduced a system where the kibanja owners paid a token known as busulu which was land rent. It was not too much so it did not attract attention of those who were paying at that time, the system continues today. The law gave title and that is ownership of land to the person in which the land was established but effectively the land was occupied by the original and titled owner inform of a Kibanja.

100 years later on, the law recognizes the title owner and ignores the Kibanja holder.  In the urban and sub-urban areas, the title holders are rich influential people and can easily access court. The law gives them ownership hence the evictions of the bibanja owners who in actual facts are the original and historical owners of the land. Various laws have been put in place to try and empower the kibanja owner, for example Amin’s land decree 1975, and some other laws since then have tried to correct the problem. The recent land amendment also attempted to solve the problem and in recent times we have seen an effort by Hon. Nataba to resolve land conflicts. Unfortunately, this cannot be resolved through administrative measures. This is the point that Kintu Nyago discusses ably. There is need for a major land reform and this reform is not for the faint hearted. Fortunately the Mailo land is only a problem in Buganda. Elsewhere with communal land, the challenges are different.  For the non-Mailo land areas, there is need to sensitize people about the importance of having a formal legally recognizable title. If the people are sensitized about this, they can then give titles to owners of land. This has been attempted by Hon. Baguma Isoke in recent times. This was definitely a good move. Whether it was backed up by law, I do not know. How far it went, I do not know. The challenge with it though is that in densely populated areas like Busoga where small piece of land is owned by a father with 20 children, registration and subsequent division of such land will be a problem. Where the Mailo land exists, there are moral hazards. The original registered owner got a title by allocation and has indeed benefited from it especially in urban areas. But what do you do with the communal owners who were the actual owners of the land? The need to reform to the land system is even more urgent for three major reasons.

One is to give bibanja holders some legal rights to what is there and in the process enable people have collateral for bank purposes. This has a dark side though. Thousands of the unsuspecting land owners would definitely lose the land to the banks because I don’t find borrowing by many Ugandans viable. (That is another discussion)

Secondly, it would allow plantation agricultural production if well organized and lastly if properly thought out, the reforms would prevent loss of land by Ugandans to foreigners at giveaway prices. However it needs bold hard decisions to affect the reforms that will remove the current moral challenges to land ownership.