UGANDA, Kampala | Real Muloodi News | Police are currently investigating a land grabbing racket that involves a number of city tycoons and land officers in Metropolitan Kampala and districts of Wakiso, Mukono, and Mpigi.
It is reported that investigations began after President Museveni instructed the police to follow up on the public’s outcry about continuous illegal land evictions.
“The president is not happy with the ongoing evictions in the city where tycoons are illegally evicting people. Such illegal acts undermine the government and the President wants those tycoons to be investigated thoroughly and dealt with,” a certain reporter said.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Major General Tumusiime Katsigazi, also confirmed that indeed the investigations on land grabbing and illegal evictions are ongoing.
He, however, did not mention the city tycoons they were investigating, but confirmed they will be named at the end of the investigation.
“It is true that we are investigating them. They have been using land officers to take people’s land and this has very many people stranded. We want to get to the bottom of this matter and apprehend all those tycoons and land officers involved because there are so many cases out there of people being displaced and we cannot watch this impunity to continue,” the Deputy IGP said.
Sources revealed that land fraud-related cases are common in Kampala and Wakiso. There are city tycoons with a history of land grabbing and involvement in illegal evictions.
Major General Katsigazi, therefore, urged the police officers who are investigating not to be corrupted by the subjects of the probe, and that they should follow the law as required.
In April, Major General Katsigazi accused some police officers of failing to implement the law during illegal evictions.
“What has been killing us is that police officers don’t follow the law, and they become the law themselves. Instead of the district police commanders stopping the rich man from carrying out an illegal eviction, they side with him to terrorize the poor. So it is about disciplinary action. Actually some court orders are fake. They are written by court clerks not registrars and the court clerks work with police. But that is part of how we want to impart discipline in our police officers. That area is too much and people are crying everyday,” he said.
“But it is a more complex issue because other problems are caused by land offices which create multiple land titles on one plot of land. I am studying the whole thing because it is more complex than just police because some of our political leaders are involved and tend to threaten our officers,” he added.
Katsigazi also revealed that the public will know the findings of the investigations when completed. He also added that any police officer implicated in illegal land evictions will be dealt with as per the law.
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