Land as a precious resource given by God to man

By Gerald Padde Auku

God’s nature more so his love to mankind, the precious, enduring thing he gave man was land of which human beings in respective of race, colour, poor or rich have right to it.

Stretching back to Biblical and Holly Quran teachings, emphasis on equity, love and justice are clearly mentioned and emphasised. The church and the mosque often refer these for reflection and reminders to followers on what God expects of them.

For example, in the Bible, Mark chapter 12:31 says...“Second commandment, ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’, there is no commandment greater than these”. Roman 12:9 further says “let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good”.

The same way Qur’an 16:90 God commands justice and fair dealing and justice must be done to everyone. The Qur’an further says that justice must be meted out in all fairness even if the decision goes against one’s own self, ones parents, relatives, the poor or rich. Deciding affairs with impartiality, unbiased, equity, fairness and equal treatment without any inclination to anyone in preference to another.

The perspective here is reminding ourselves on what God expects from us. Life of love, fairness and just to one another. Despite of the word and the attempts by religious leaders to preach the word of God, question to ask is to what extent has this been upheld? Of course I don’t want to be a prophet of fate or doom but significant to note is that as a country, we have lost the upright morals and the outstanding being “love to one another”.

 Flashing back to the olden days say it 70s and 80s, people used to live in the harmonious way despite of the insecurity in some regions. People used to share whatever they had with relatives and neighbours. I remember my parents deploying us (children) in our early age to mobilise friends, relatives to attend parties that were organised at home in return; we were given eggs, money by the invitees as an appreciation for inviting and passing on the message, which was really enjoyable to us.

On the other hand, land was a must to a man to own. In an event one fails, individuals with huge chucks could always give in a piece and the reasoning was on the value attached to land in terms of food production. Again food security and surplus food was a must to household contrary to what is happening today.

Currently land is perceived by young population as a resource not a factor of production. Justifying the sell in the exchange for popular means of transport in Kampala Bodaboda. Traditionally, land was not for sale and it was proud for one to own land and use it for food production.

Whereas the Government has developed an ambitious Vision 2040 that among the aspects highlighted is Uganda moving from underdeveloped to middle income country, strategy to achieving these is through transforming agriculture sector from peasantry to modernisation. However, incongruity in achieving this is that:

 1) The issue of open market for land transaction. Situation were any one whether citizens and non-citizens acquires land any were as long as they have money;

 2) Individualism. The rich are accumulating a lot of land at the expense of the poor 3) issue of bribery and corruption by the duty bears. In fact according to EABI 2014 report, the prevalence rate of bribery in lands was at 46.5% compared to 37.7% in 2013. On gender, Transparency International Uganda (TIU) disaggregated data shows that out of 170 women who interacted with local lands offices for service, 47% said bribe was demanded. This goes handy with forgery of land tittles at ministry level, delays in issuing land tittles, inadequate conflict resolution mechanism.

All these issues impact negatively to the poor. The current massive land grabbing   by selfish individuals as well as so called “investors”, protests against land grabbing as evidenced by the recent self-striping by women in north and eastern Uganda points bigger problems ahead. Moving forward, the Government should ensure equity and distribution, adequate information sharing, guidelines for foreigners to acquiring land should be developed and popularized;

Countries such as Botswana have managed to mitigate the issue of foreigners acquiring land by putting in place stringent measures; awareness creation on processes in the acquiring land would minimize corruption and bribery.

To sustain growth and development, the Government should look into these issues and come up with solutions that are not only limited to land rights but also help achieve the Vision 2040 that was launched last year by President Yoweri Museveni.

The writer works with Transparency International Uganda