The government, through the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (MLHUD), is mooting a plan that will see the ministry collect the annual nominal ground rent, locally known as Busuulu on behalf of the landlords.
The revelation was made by the lands minister, Judith Nabakooba, who shared that her ministry has already finalized making statutory regulations that will guide the collection process and once gazetted, she will table them on the floor of parliament for approval.
“They will grant the ministry powers to create an account where landlords refuse to receive the busuulu, it can be deposited on that account to be opened by my permanent secretary,” she noted.
She made the revelation on January 7, during the Land and Parish Development Model- update meeting with local leaders held at Kassanda District headquarters.
According to the minister, this move comes at the backdrop of several complaints from tenants over increasing numbers of landlords refusing to take up their Busuulu, using it as a tool to evict tenants from their land.
“Remember when you fail to pay busuulu for three consecutive years, the landlord holds you accountable as per the law directs,” Nabakooba added, noting that this initiative will also help to deal with absentee landlords.
The rate of the nominal ground rent shall not increase and tenants who were asked to embrace this new initiative were gazetted to avoid falling victims of defaulting landlords.
The minister noted that before taking the step of writing these statutory regulations, she engaged District Land Boards (DLB) and district leaders to get their view on whether the busuulu rates should change.
“The busuulu we have now still stands and that is what we are considering. For a village, they pay Shs5,000, Town Council [Shs30,000], Municipality-Shs40,000 and a City-Shs50,000 annually,” she guided.
Meanwhile, despite a few challenges including extortion from intended beneficiaries, the Parish Development Model in Kassanda District has so far registered successful stories and it has manifested potential to alleviate poverty among the local communities.
Mr Robert Kasendwa, the District Commercial Officer, said Kassanda received Shs18.8 billion PDM cash in the past two financial years and a significant sum of the money was given to the beneficiaries.
During the 2022/2023 financial year, Shs9.6 billion was disbursed to their account and in this fiscal year, they received Shs9.2bn.
“We have 92 enterprise Saccos and all of them received their money and are progressing well with their projects,” he said, noting that they have more than five enterprise projects.
In Kassanda, PDM beneficiaries ventured into piggery, dairy farming, coffee, beans, maize, banana, poultry, and Irish.
Ms Phoebe Namulindwa, the Kassanda Resident District Commissioner-RDC, encouraged people to embrace PDM, noting that President Museveni looks at it as the final bullet that will kick poverty out of the grassroots.
“The President is sending us these funds to reduce the number of people using money lenders. We realized that a significant number of people had used their National Identity Cards as collateral,” she noted.
In the land docket, Kassanda still has a few land cases majorly among family members but the government through the use of the Land Fund, has bought land for tenants in the area.
Ms Nabakooba asked landlords who would wish to sell their land to the government to apply officially expressing interest.
She cautioned the public against land fragmentation, advocating for the utilization of land as a family to increase their production,
“The President has always reminded us to avoid dividing our land if you want to get good harvests. Keep the land under trustees and work as a family to develop it,” she emphasized.
