Parliament has raised concern over the ownership of school land in Nansana Municipality after officials failed to produce land titles for 48 of the municipality’s 49 government and government-aided schools.
The matter came to light when officials from Nansana Municipal Council appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (Local Government) to respond to queries contained in the Auditor General’s report.
The committee, chaired by Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze Bakireke, asked the officials to produce land titles for government schools in the municipality.
Nambooze specifically asked officials to present the titles for the seven schools that are fully owned by the government.
However, the officials could only produce one land title.
“We understand there are 49 government and government-aided schools. Do you have all the 49 titles?” Nambooze asked.
The municipality’s Senior Physical Planner, Simon Kiguli, told the committee that the failure to secure the titles was partly caused by family disputes and resistance from religious organisations that own some of the school land.
“Some of these schools are faith-founded and the owners tend to stick with these titles. That is why we cannot have these titles,” Kiguli explained.
He said the problem also affected some of the schools classified as government schools.
“For the government schools, which are seven, some families that donated the land for these schools refuse to avail these titles because they want to be part of them,” Kiguli said.
The explanation did not satisfy Nambooze, who questioned why the government continued to put money into schools whose land ownership had not been secured.
“Why do you continue funding schools whose titles you don’t have? These investments are sitting on other people’s land,” Nambooze said.
Municipal Town Clerk Festo Tandeka defended the continued funding of the schools, saying the municipality could not simply stop implementing government programmes because of land title problems.
“I cannot stop funding a school when government has sent its funds,” Tandeka told the committee.
The committee was also concerned about the size of the land attached to the only government school for which officials produced a title.
The school is reportedly located on 2.5 acres, a size Nambooze questioned given the public investment in a government school.
“A government school cannot sit on that small piece. I sense connivance with municipality officials who work with some family members to steal such land,” Nambooze said.
She called for a separate investigation into the ownership and size of land on which the schools are located.
“We need a separate committee to investigate these schools, but please, Town Clerk, make sure you put a caveat on all this school land until we get the proper owners and titles,” Nambooze directed.
According to the municipal officials, Nansana Municipality has 49 government and government-aided schools.
Of these, 25 are associated with the Church of Uganda, 14 with the Catholic Church, four with the Muslim community and seven are public government schools.
The committee is expected to pursue the matter further to establish who legally owns the land occupied by the schools, why the titles have not been secured and whether any public land has been lost or is at risk of being claimed by private individuals or institutions.
