Top lands bosses arrested on fraud

Feb 24, 2009

THE Police have arrested three senior officials of the lands ministry in connection with fraudulent land dealings.

By Herbert Ssempogo

THE Police have arrested three senior officials of the lands ministry in connection with fraudulent land dealings.

Ambrose Olikiliza, the senior registrar of titles, Jane Frances Kasirye and Augustine Nsubuga, both senior records officials, were picked up from the head office on Parliament Avenue in Kampala on Monday.

They were due to be interrogated and to make statements at the Central police Station, Kampala yesterday.

According to the Police, the officials were arrested following a shady transaction in which three people, among them a lawyer, attempted to grab five acres of land belonging to the wife of Rabbi Ezekiel Mulondo.

The land is situated on Block 223, Plot 245 at Kyaliwajjala, Namugongo in Wakiso district.

Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba said Samuel Wasswa, David Ssenfuka and Lubega Matovu, the lawyer, wanted to buy the land late last year. They signed the transfer forms without paying for the land, which was nevertheless transferred into the name of Wasswa.

Mulondo lodged a complaint, which prompted the land titles fraud squad to investigate the matter.
Matovu, Ssenfuka and Wasswa were charged with forgery and conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to a fine.

The investigators said yesterday Olikiliza and his accomplices helped Wasswa get the title without paying for the land.

“They connive with fraudsters to forge documents and defraud people,” the Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba said.

“They also duplicate land title certificates without the owners’ consent.”

Land fraud can only succeed with collusion with lands office staff, Nabakooba added.

Accordingly, she said, the officials will face charges of abuse of office. She also accused them of frustrating Police investigations.

The head of the Land titles fraud squad, Charles Olinga, said no one involved in the scam would be spared.

In another incident, Henry Kyeyune’s land on Block 189, Plot 16 in Seeta, a suburb of Kampala, was illegally transferred to Mohammed Lutakoome and later to Sharifa Nakakeeto.

Although Kyeyune had used his land as security for a bank loan, papers were forged that indicated that Lutakoome had paid it back.

This is why the lands office transferred ownership of the land to him. The Police said Kyeyune’s land title had mysteriously gone missing before the fraud.

The lands senior records officer, Nsubuga described the allegations as baseless, while Kasirye and Olikiliza refused to comment.

The lands ministry spokesperson, Dennis Obbo, admitted anomalies, but said “corrective measures” were underway to return the land to the rightful owner. He absolved Nsubuga and Kasirye, saying the registry was congested, making the tracing of documents hard.

Obbo also accused the public of being behind forged documents and said the ministry did not have the technology to detect fake papers, but relied on “visual ability and human skills”.

“Corrective measures are taken whenever forgeries are detected,” he said.

The media has been awash with land disputes some originating from forged documents.

Saturday Vision reported that former finance minister Gerald Sendaula was embroiled in a land wrangle in which he might have lost sh800m for 640 acres of land in Mpigi district.

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