Govt suspends operations of land office at Wakiso

The government has suspended operations at the Wakiso land office for two weeks, New Vision has learnt.

The suspension comes in effect starting Saturday, January 4 and will run until January 21, the Lands ministry said.

"From tomorrow January 4, 2020, the ministry will freeze the operations of the Wakiso MZO (ministry zonal office) in preparation for a system upgrade," the ministry said.

The suspension, the ministry said, would enable carrying out crucial systems upgrade of Land Information System (LIS) which cannot be done while the offices are open to the public.

"Therefore there shall be no transactions received and/or registered. There shall also not be the generation of deed plans as cartographic and survey operations will be stopped," the ministry added.

According to the ministry, 394,000 titles will be affected. Of these, 202,000 are under Busiro County while Kyadondo County has 192,000 land titles.

Persis Namuganza, the state lands minster, says the suspension of operations was part of an ongoing program to improve services at lands offices across the country.  So far, she revealed, the upgrade has been completed in 20 ministry zonal office registries.

"The ministry regrets any inconveniences that will arise due to the closure of the Land Registry and Land Administration Department offices and assure the general public that it is intended to improve and better service of the Wakiso Land registry," she said.

Uganda now operates a digitalized land registry thanks to a $23.8m (about sh87.3b) World Bank-funded project, which enabled the country to build capacity for staff members, buy equipment, scan the documents and put in place online connection systems among the lands offices countrywide.

Institute Geographique National France International (IGNFI), a French company, won the contract. According to the ministry, IGNFI implemented the project through the DeSILSoR Project that involved among others designing the software, supplying, installing and implementing a land records system.

According to the ministry, a digitalized registry has helped improve the delivery of basic land services to the population and improve land tenure security.