Parliament has in an unprecedented move halted the disbursement of Shs 5.29 billion recently approved under the ministry of Lands and Uganda Land Commission (ULC) to settle outstanding land compensation.
The money in question was meant for the compulsory government acquisition of land of the Ndeeba Church of Uganda valued at Shs 3.8 billion razed down by businessman Dodovico Mwanje last year, and compensation of another piece of land belonging to Geoffrey Mugisha valued at Shs 1.49 billion at Buyaga, Kibaale.
These funds are part of a bigger Shs 292 billion supplementary budget approved by parliament on February 11 to among others; enable the government purchase 18 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, purchase more face masks by the ministry of Health and purchase more ambulances.
However, in her communication to the plenary sitting today, speaker Rebecca Kadaga said that she had received formal complaints after the passing of the supplementary budget particularly regarding land compensation under the ULC.
It should be recalled that Mugisha was one of the six beneficiaries whose compensation was cleared by parliament. Kadaga says that a complaint on her desk entails inflation of land for which parliament approved money for compensation and others. She reported that under the circumstances, this part of the supplementary cannot be released pending an investigation by a parliament ad-hoc committee.
"One of the requests for compensation, the land has been inflated by 254 hectares. Secondly, that although the presentation indicated that one of the beneficiaries was receiving a second payment, in fact, she has never received even the first payment therefore the chances were that the second payment was also not going to reach her. The third one is also related to inflating the quantum. These are matters which we thought we should first inform the house. I have also informed the minister of Finance that we're unable to process the entire supplementary, and that I will be asking him to move a motion to temporarily hold that part of the supplementary. And that I shall be instituting another committee to investigate those allegations so we can come to the bottom of it," said Kadaga.
Prior to the approval of the supplementary budget on February 11, there was an embarassing sharp disagreement between the minister of Lands Beti Olive Kamya, minister of State for Lands Persis Namuganza and the chairperson ULC, Beatrice Byenkya Nyakaisiki in regard to the compensation when they appeared before MPs.
Byenkya raised a red flag on the approval of funds saying that her Commission was responsible for the compensations, but it was not privy to information about the beneficiaries and the processes that led to their compensation. On the other hand, ministers Kamya and Namuganza insisted that the already presented list of six beneficiaries should be considered since they had been cleared by the ministry of Lands following a presidential directive.
Patrick Isiagi, parliament's budget committee vice chairperson would later report that the stand-off between ministry of Lands and the ULC had been resolved and the list of beneficiaries for compensation acknowledged. He recommended that parliament approves the funds and despite the then resistance from a section of MPs led by Dokolo Woman MP Cecilia Ogwal, the funds got a nod from parliament.
Now following the new inconsistencies revealed by Kadaga, the minister of state for Finance-General Duties, Gabriel Ajedra took to the floor and moved a motion to amend the resolution of parliament on the supplementary expenditure for financial year 2020/2021.
He acknowledged that parliament had received a petition from a man identified Michael Obongomin contesting the allocations made to ministry of Lands for the benefit of M/s Ephraim Enterprises totalling Shs 3.8 billion as compensation for the compulsory acquisition by government for the demolished Ndeeba Church land.
He added that the same petition contested the Shs 1.49 billion compensation for Mugisha's land. Minister Ajedra says that the petitioner alleges that the land belonging to Mugisha had been inflated by 254 hectares and the value for M/s Ephraim Enterprises land had been inflated by Shs 2 billion.
Kadaga directed the clerk to parliament to clear the other items in the supplementary so that the different ministries can process their resources.
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