Govt asked to tax idle land

The Government has been asked to tax the large tracts of privately-owned idle land across the country in order to encourage its productive use.

Director of socio-economic monitoring and research in the Office of the President Vincent Tumusiime says the tax is among several proposals, including a cap on how much public land individuals can own, to make land ownership more equitable, management more transparent and transactions less corrupt, which should be considered to increase revenue for the country.

“In a developing country aspiring to achieve middle-income status, it is deemed necessary to devise strategies to induce owners of such unutilised land to put it to productive use,” Tumusiime said.

Tumusiime was reacting to the panel, during the launch of Public Investment Financing Strategy (PIFS) at Sheraton Kampala Hotel on Tuesday, March 21,2023.

He added that the country developed a policy that would aid in building consensus to levy taxes on unused land to maximise the county's tax base: “There are direct benefits and spillovers realisable from unlocking idle land by putting it to productive use.”

In 2009, the government drafted a national land policy in which it proposed to levy a tax on owners of undeveloped land, but it is yet to be implemented.

According to the policy, the tax was meant to compel landowners who cannot develop their land to release it to those who can develop it. It should encourage land utilisation and deter the speculative accumulation of land, according to the draft.

Meanwhile, according to Agnes Kisembo, an official from the United Nations Women, citizens should be well-empowered to be able to develop the idle land arguing that several of them (citizens) are way below the poverty lines, which, according to her, makes it difficult for them to develop the land.

She added that the Government should focus rightly and address the growing poverty so as to help citizens utilise the idle land and increase production.

"We should be sure that our focus is aiming rightly if we are to unlock the potential of our people so as to enable them to use the land for development," Kisembo said.