Kampala: Jinja Municipality Mayor, Majid Batambuze has said a police letter circulating on social media naming him as having facilitated a land transaction involving Shayan Trading company is a carefully hatched plan to besmirch his name.
Speaking to Eagle Online, Mr Batambuze said that whereas his office received numerous expressions of interest from different parties, neither his office nor him personally has ever been involved in a transaction involving the said company.
He instead said the land under question was fraudulently grabbed by Mr Yahya Kisakye and Ashraf Buyinza who are now using all avenues to besmirch the Mayors name.
“The purported land applied for in that letter does not exist because we do not have Farady road in Jinja. If they were referring to the land along Kyabazinga Highway then that matter is going through a public hearing at the ministry of Lands because that land was grabbed from Jinja Municipal Council and we are fighting to get it back.
“The land had been leased to Tirupati, a real estate firm, but it was fraudulently taken over Mr Yahya and Buyinza Ashraf who worked with unscrupulous people in the ministry of lands and added titles on already existing titles and they sub divided it into 30 plots which were sold to individuals in town,” he said.
A letter, dated July 19, from the Police CID signed off by Mr Kiirya Sisye Benrard to the Speaker Jinja Municipal Council names the mayor as having coordinated the land transaction where the land was to be given to Shayan Limited.
It further seeks clarification as to whether the council has the mandate to allocate land and or lease land in the district and whether the said company every asked for the land to be leased to them.
“They will fight to tarnish my name that I am fighting for myself. Those two land grabbers will use any avenue including now running to CID to bring my name into disrepute and cast aspersions against my name before the Jinja people but that is simply politics.
“My involvement in that land is that I am fighting to return it to the municipality from those who had grabbed it. I do not own land Jinja Municipal land and therefore I do not have any mandate to give pout land,” he said.
He further said, “Jinja Municipal Council can allocate land to investors but it has to go through the relevant channels. This is Jinja land and it is my duty and the Mayor to protect public property,” the mayor said.
“We took the matter to Ministry of lands and a hearing that has been going on. We concluded the hearings yesterday and we are now waiting or the verdict. We want the fraudulent titles that were put on the original titles to be revoked and the land reverts back to the municipality.”