Land grabbing: Bisheshe Division suspends sitting to protest over stolen government land
Councilors in Bisheshe Division, Ibanda district have today suspended council indefinitely in protest over the Ibanda Municipality leaders’ failure to secure government land from illegal occupants.
During the aborted council meeting on Thursday, Perez Tukwatanise, the division council speaker, said the councilors are not happy with the municipality leadership for never implementing the division’s resolutions on the land grabbers.
While moving the motion to suspend council sitting, Anna Tumuhairwe, the councilor representing Karangara ward, said they wanted to send a clear message to the “municipal leaders so they act on the issue of land grabber. The motion was seconded by Sylvia Twongyeirwe, the councilor representing Bugarama North ward.
When the division speaker put the question to the council, it received unanimous support from the councilors.
Earlier, division chairman Johnson Kanyomozi, said council has been allocating money for titling the lands in the division since 2018, noting that none of its 23 pieces of land is titled.
Kanyomozi threaten to mobilize LC one and two leaders in the division to join councilors in a protest against the land grabbers and municipality leadership, if they continue ignoring their concerns on the issue.
The contested land includes land that hosts Bisheshe trading centre, for which the occupants pay ground rent to the division.
However, some of the encroachers have put up schools and others planted eucalyptus forests on the land.
