Acholi Paramount Chief David Onen Acana II. Photo By Brian Komakech
By Brian Komakech
Gulu: Acholi Paramount Chief, David Onen Acana II, has advised his subjects to seek clear guidance from traditional leaders before embracing the government’s Customary Certificate of Ownership (CCO).
The Government in 2015 launched the registration of land for the issuance of CCOs across the country, to solve boundary conflicts, exploitation, and false claims by other family members on customary land.
The Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development has recently been sensitizing communities within the Acholi sub-region to embrace land registration under customary land tenure.
Rwot Acana is now proposing that if customary land is to be registered in Acholi Sub-region, it should undergo two key stages; first, registration in the name of a respective clan, second, registration by the clan that then registers it and partly transfers its tenure to the Acholi cultural institution, to be the custodian of the land, while its use and occupancy rights remain with the respective clans.
The Paramount Chief also said the current customary certificate of land registration raises suspicions because it was not done in the past. He noted that while the government intends to register the land, there is a need to ensure that it suits the demands in the region and urged locals not to accept being pushed.
“Why is the government thinking that people should register their customary land now yet we have lived for several years and never registered the land but lived peacefully?” asked Rwot Acana.
Since the commencement of the program in 2015, at least 1,017 certificates of customary land ownership have been issued to families, clans, and households in the two sub-counties of Paimol and Wol all in Agago District.
Land titles as a guarantee for loans
During a consultative meeting with various stakeholders from the Acholi Sub-region in Gulu City last month, Prof Jack Nyeko Pen-Mogi, the Acting Chairperson of the Uganda Lands Commission, called on locals to embrace registration to ease access to loans from banks.
“You don’t carry land to the bank if you want a loan. Those who have the certificate carry the certificate to the bank and get money. The reason why probably we are selling land very cheaply is because we can’t utilize the land by getting money from the bank so that we buy a tractor or we open up our land to make it productive” Prof. Pen-Mogi told leaders during the meeting.
John Amos Okot, the Agago North legislator in Agago District, however, noted that Prof. Pen-Mogi’s remarks were misleading because people can’t only develop through loans from banks.
“Who tells you that a loan is the only thing that makes you develop? Who tells you that you should get a loan out of your land as a security? On that basis, we urge our people to stop the registration process,” Okot told GNNA in an interview.
Okot equally reiterated that the community in the Acholi Sub-region must seek clarity on the process of registration to avoid future regrets.
Early last month, the government through the Lands Ministry rolled out a mass sensitization drive on Certificate of Customary registration in the Acholi Sub-region, to accept the process which had initially met resistance from a section of political leaders.
The government noted that the CCO is a legal document recognized under Section 4 (1), Cap. 227 of the 1998 Land Act, where an individual, a family, a community, or a traditional institution owns forever and uses, occupies, or deals in land under the customary rules of land ownership.
Dorcas Okalany, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development explained last month that the registration of customary land will help to reduce land conflicts in the Acholi sub-region.
Okalany noted that the victims of land conflicts in the sub-region have been women and children who have long been deprived of customary land in cases of disputes.
The government currently boasts, through the issuance of Certificates of land titles on customary land, of integrating more than 600 clans and communities who have been at long ahead.
Additionally, some 78,516 certificates of land title have so far been issued to beneficiaries across the country.
Gov’t not targeting land in Acholi
Sheila Naturinda, the Communications Specialist at the World Bank’s Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID), under the Lands Ministry, told GNNA that the government is not targeting any piece of land in the Acholi Sub-region through the registration exercise.
According to Naturinda, having a certificate of title on customary land gives an individual, clan, or community higher negotiation power in case they intend to lease out their land, and is a measure of protecting the land for posterity.
“The registration is more of an advantage to the land owners than it was to anyone else. The culture will stay, but we are saying what does the law say? The land belongs to the people of Uganda and that’s why we don’t want other citizens to come and take over the land,” said Naturinda.
Naturinda argued that the registration of land under customary tenure is a voluntary exercise and the government isn’t forcing anyone to participate in it.
“We are not forcing anyone to register, and that’s why we are using LCs and Sub-county chiefs so that they mobilize people and we come and talk to them,” said Naturinda.
She said the Ministry is currently consulting various stakeholders including the traditional chiefs on the implementation of the land registration.
Traditionally, land in Acholi is customarily owned. Its usage however since time immemorial has been divided into homesteads, agricultural lands, grazing grounds, hunting grounds, and forested areas that are used to access firewood, fruit gathering, and medicinal herbs among others.
Since the commencement of the Customary Certificate of Ownership in the country, the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development has so far issued 78,156 certificates as evidence of land ownership across 16 districts in Uganda.
According to the government, 90 percent of land owners in the Karamoja Districts of Moroto, Nabilatuk, Nakapiripirit, Amudat, and Kabong have already secured CCO. Other districts where the exercise is being implemented include Nwoya, Agago, and Pader all in Acholi Sub-region, Mbale, Adjumani, Katakwi, Soroti, Butaleja, Kabale, and Kisoro.
