Otafiire denies grabbing land

Jun 25, 2009

Trade and tourism minister Kahinda Otafiire has denied accusations that he tried to snatch a plot in the city and engineered the interdiction of the Commissioner for Land Registration.

By Anne Mugisa and Edward Anyoli

Trade and tourism minister Kahinda Otafiire has denied accusations that he tried to snatch a plot in the city and engineered the interdiction of the Commissioner for Land Registration.

The commissioner, Jonathan Tibisaasa, had petitioned the High Court, saying he was interdicted in 2005 for refusing to accept some demands by Otafiire, who was then the lands minister. He wants the High Court to reinstate his job.

He alleges that he was suspended because he had refused to approve the payment of $46,736 (sh98m) to Steward Net Technologies, which he said had presented fraudulent claims to the ministry.

He also claims Otafiire wanted him out because he refused to process a title in Otafiire’s name for two acres of land in Upper Kololo.

A week prior to his interdiction, Otafiire phoned him and told him that “there was no room for bishops in his ministry,” said Tibisaasa in his affidavit.

But Otafiire told journalists in Kampala yesterday that he has instructed his lawyers to sue Tibisaasa for defamation.

The accusations, Otafiire said, were meant to divert attention from the commissioner’s fraudulent deals in the lands office. Otafiire is also suing the Daily Monitor newspaper for perpetuating the defamation.

The minister said Tibisaasa should produce records showing that he wanted land transferred in his name..

“I responded to the public outcry about the conduct of some officials in the lands registry, which was under Tibisaasa’s supervision then. I wrote to the Permanent Secretary about it and asked him to investigate and take action,” Otafiire said.

The complaints, he added, included missing files, illegal titles, double registration and people being forced to pay for their files to be searched for.

He said the Permanent Secretary interdicted at least five officials, including Tibisaasa. He said some had been exonerated.

“If Tibisaasa was a victim of my greed, how come my successor and the Permanent Secretary’s successor did not exonerate him?” asked Otafiire.

One of the issues of contention, he said, was when he forced Tibisaasa to produce a file he was hiding for land the Kampala City Council had allocated to a group of South African investors who planned to build a CHOGM hotel.

Another disagreement was over the fact that Tibisaasa, in the absence of the minister, had awarded a tender to Face Technologies, a company which the ministry wanted investigated for substandard work.

“The company we wanted audited had won the tender. I could not believe it!” Otafiire said.

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