UGANDA, Wakiso | Real Muloodi News | Lawyers Muwema & Co Advocates, representing Hamis Kiggundu’s company, Kiham Enterprises Ltd, have filed a petition to revoke several land titles in Kigo established by the Buganda Kingdom in favour of Pearl Development Group.
The land in question is the site of the exclusive Lake Victoria Serena Golf and Spa Resort, which neighbours several parcels of land owned by Kiham Enterprises in Kigo, which are currently under dispute.
According to the petition, Serena’s land titles infringe on Kiham Enterprises’ disputed Kigo land on Block 273.
The petition states Serena’s titles were made from mailo land that was included in Block 273 plots 38, 87, 99, and 110, and all sit on the same public land as Kiham Enterprises’ land.
The complaint is that the parent mailo titles in this case are part of private mailo land which cannot legally exist or sit on public land.
“Consequently, the questioned lease titles issued on the said mailo titles which are in the names of Pearl Development Group, were by infection, issued illegally,” submit Muwema & Co Advocates.
Therefore according to the petition, Serena’s land titles should be removed from the land register and revoked, in accordance with section 91 of the Land Act Cap 227 as amended.
The petition was sent to the Commissioner of Land Registration on 20th September, 2022, two weeks after the Commissioner issued a decision to cancel Kiham Enterprises’ titles on Block 273, Plots 23974, 23975, 23976 and 23977 in Kigo.
In his ruling issued on September 6, 2022, the acting Commissioner of Land Registration, Baker Mugaino, said he had based his decision to cancel Kiham Enterprises’ titles on the fact that there was a title overlay against titles that were issued earlier.
“I note that the procedure of allocating the land for the freehold titles were flawed and had irregularities, and the Commissioner Land Registration being the statutory custodian of the land register cannot maintain certificates of title on register where the due process of surveying, area land committee meetings involved illegalities that misled the office to issue titles,” ruled Mugaino.
Kiggundu’s lawyers immediately challenged the decision on the grounds of evident procedural impropriety and irregularities.
According to Kiggundu’s lawyers, as an official entity, the Commissioner of Land Registration is required to uphold and give effect to the public survey report to carry out its statutory obligations appropriately and consistently.
Whereas, according to the lawyers, the Commissioner of Land Registration acted with “double standards and flouting the principles of impartiality and natural justice” to deliver a decision that favours Buganda Land Board (BLB).
Kiggundu’s lawyers base this accusation on the fact that the commissioner ordered “cancellation of all [Kiham Enterprises Ltd’s] freehold titles measuring 223 acres against a disclosed partial overlap of only 29.9 acres on BLB’s mailo land…not ordering cancellation of BLB’s mailo titles overlapping Kiham Enterprises’s freehold land by 87.12 acres.
The ruling of the Commissioner of Land Registration followed a complaint by BLB over the land owned by Kiham Enterprises, on grounds that it was issued over already existing Mailo titles owned by the Kabaka and a leasehold title issued to Pearl Development Group Limited.
The High Court granted an injunction last week prohibiting the Commissioner for Land Registration from cancelling the four land titles belonging to Kiham Enterprises Ltd.
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