The Minister of State of Land Dr. Sam Mayanja faced it rough before the Nakawa-Naguru Ad-hoc Committee when he failed to answer several questions from Members of Parliament regarding the saga of land allocation.
Mayanja who decided to appear before the committee after the senior minister, Judith Nabakooba refused to appear before the Nakawa-Naguru Land Committee. Ms Nabakooba reasoned that the matter they want to ask her is before the Court.
Mayanja, stubbornly disregarded Minister Nabakooba’s reasons and decided to appear and explain. He blamed Uganda Land Commission for always following the former Ministers for Lands who used to give them orders to issue land titles to the beneficiaries of Nakawa-Naguru Land.
“I am totally shocked why the Uganda Land Commission was just issuing land titles, because this is a body which is independent, they are appointed by the president not the Minister for Lands,” Mayanja said. However, Bugiri Municipality Member of Parliament Asuman Basalirwa Said that Sam Mayanja is doing a disservice to the Ministry. “Mr Minister you are becoming academically unnecessary, don’t cause problems to the president”.
Minister Nabakooba recently disowned Dr. Mayanja who had earlier claimed that he was instructed by Nabakooba to write to President Yoweri Museveni over the same saga but Nabakooba has come out distancing herself from her junior state that she never instructed anybody to write to the president.
How events unfolded
Last year, the then State Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, said the land has been earmarked for the construction of a specialized medical centre.
“The Naguru-Nakawa land was government land where they had constructed low cost houses in the 1960s but we came up with an idea to develop modern housing units. However, Opec Prime Properties did not have the capacity. Government usually gives developers five years to execute projects but they failed,” Dr. Baryomunsi said last year while presenting the 2016-2021 National Resistance Movement party manifesto report on housing sector performance in Kampala.
The minister added that the land in question had been repossessed by the Land Commission on behalf of the government. He said the medical hub will complement the Naguru-China Friendship Hospital, the Iran Hospital, and the Uganda Heart Institute, which has also been given 10 acres from the same land for purposes of constructing a new health facility, as well as a Kenyan medical company and another company from the United States of America.
