The Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters has up to this Saturday 9th November, 2019 to wind up its work that has been on going for the last couple of years.
The commission led by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire has been investigating the effectiveness of the law, policies and processes of land acquisition, management and registration in the country since it was instituted by President Yoweri Museveni on December 8, 2016.
The mandate of the Commission was supposed to end in May 2018 but they were granted an 18 months extension period by President Museveni.
According to the commission, 7,799 complaints were received and 2700 of them filed by people who were threatened with evictions based on court orders.
3,400 complaints were referred for mediation while 110 cases were handled through public hearings.
According to the commissions’ lead counsel Ebert Byenkya, about 3,000 complaints remain unresolved and will form the basis for the next course of action.
“The funding was cut and affected investigations and it was not coming in time. We also had to cut down staff. It affected our capacity to investigate land matters and, in some instances, investigators encountered friction with people they were investigating, which affected the turnaround of cases,” Byenkya was quoted by Daily Monitor.
