MPs from the Busoga region have challenged plans to evict residents from land owned by the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC), arguing that the railway line no longer operates.
More than 700 households in Jinja South West division have been told to leave the land near the railway line by 1 December 2026 or face forced eviction.
Timothy Batuwa Lusala, the MP for Jinja South West division, and Hussein Muyonjo, the MP for Jinja North division, raised their concerns before Parliament’s committee on physical infrastructure. The committee is chaired by Mwine Mpaka.
The two MPs told the committee that the corporation stopped running trains in the area many years ago. They argued that there is therefore no working railway line in the corridor.
Batuwa said more than 58 companies hold land titles and leases on land the corporation says belongs to it.
Paul Mwiru, the owner of Mwiru Holdings, also told the committee that he holds a title to part of the same land.
“I got a title from Jinja district land board, so how can they say the titles are forged?” he said.
Officials from the land board gave a different account of Mwiru’s land. They said that before the land records system was digitised, his plot appeared to lie outside railway land. It was later established that the land belonged to the railways.
The officials denied authorising the processing of some of the titles. They accepted, however, that some had been approved before the corporation began reclaiming its land.
The meeting brought together the committee, Jinja local government officials and MPs from the affected area.
Its aim was to establish who legally owns the land and to agree a periodic leasehold framework until money for the railway project becomes available.
The corporation says the evictions follow a Cabinet directive and are needed to protect railway infrastructure and rehabilitate the metre-gauge network.
