MPs halt eviction of tenants on railway land

Sep 05, 2011

MPs have halted the eviction of over 1,400 tenants on Uganda Railways land in Luzira and Nsambya to allow investigations into the sale of the land.

BY HENRY SEKANJAKO AND RAYMOND BAGUMA

MPs have halted the eviction of over 1,400 tenants on Uganda Railways land in Luzira and Nsambya to allow investigations into the sale of the land.

The halt came on Thursday after the committee on commissions, statutory authorities and state enterprises found anomalies in the method in which Uganda Railways Corporation sold its land in Port Bell.

They also protested the corporation’s transfer of the title of its Nsambya land to the Uganda Land Commission. A group of tenants under the Uganda Railways Tenants Association petitioned the committee, seeking its intervention into the sale of the corporation properties, including land, since 2005.

The tenants said the land title for the railway land in Nsambya was transferred to the Land Commission. They added that the corporation ignored the sitting tenants’ request to be granted first priority to buy and redevelop the land.

Isaac Ojok, the chairman of the tenants association, said: “We are law-abiding citizens with the capacity to buy and redevelop this land. Therefore, the give-away of this land to other developers without considering our request is detrimental to the law.”

The tenants also petitioned against the impending eviction of families in the Railway Estates in Port Bell after the corporation sold the land to National Housing and Construction Corporation. The land is located on plots 85-95, Chorley Crescent in Luzira.

Committee chairperson Patrick Amuriat said they resolved that the eviction of the tenants be stayed as the committee investigates to find ways of how the tenants could be helped.

The acting chief of the Railway Corporation, Emmanuel Iyamulemye, explained that the tenants on their Port Bell land were not given first priority to purchase because the houses were dilapidated and had been assessed as of zero value. As a result, the land was sold to National Housing.

However, the tenants said they were not informed that the houses were dilapidated.

They asked why the Railways Corporation kept on collecting rent from 2007 to October last year when the houses were found to be unfit for human habitation.

The tenants also questioned the procedure followed by the corporation in selling their other plots in Port Bell.

They accused the corporation of applying double standards in selling the land because they sold some of the plots to former workers of the corporation without subjecting the process to competitive bidding.

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