MOROTO – The regional lands office for Karamoja has remained idle even after its completion last year.
The office which is located in Moroto district, a mother district for nine other districts that constitute Karamoja region was constructed by the ministry of lands at a cost of UGX 2 billion.
The multimillion facility funded by was World Bank and was completed early this year with the purpose of coordinating land transactions, providing technical support, plus guidance and supervision to the nine district land boards in the region.
It’s also mandated to register caveats, mortgages, transfer and letters of administration.
Other services will be replacement of damaged titles and title searches.
However, since the facility was completed in 2018 up to now it has remained idle and bushy.
Francis Kiyonga the District LCV Chairperson Amudat district said they expected the completed regional lands office to help the region fight against land grabbing and multiple land titles.
He appealed to the government to speed up the opening of the offices since it will bring services closer to the people.
Kiyonga said that people have been spending more than UGX 200,000 to process a land title in Kampala and Entebbe yet it can be done from Moroto.
“I don’t understand to why the ministry of lands has taken almost one and half years without making use of this office yet it cost a lot of money,” he said.
Mr. John Nangiro the district LCV Chairperson Nakapiripirit wondered why the team from the ministry of lands has failed to utilize the building after its construction.
“That office should start its operations because there are so many land wrangles in Karamoja that this office can help to sort out,” he said.
Mr. Situma Aron the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, Moroto said the office was expected to start its operations last month.
Mr. Nicolas Ndawula the monitoring and Evaluation Officer in the Ministry of Land and Housing when contacted by PML Daily on Sunday, September 1, advised the leaders to be patient saying the office will be occupied this month.
“We have all the equipments installed in that office and we shall operationalize it this month because we have been operationalizing other offices across the country,” he said.
