The High Court Land Division has temporarily blocked Internal Affairs minister Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire from accessing and occupying a disputed piece of land located in Munyonyo, Kampala.
The temporary injunction will be in place until the main land dispute the minister is involved in with a businessman, Mr Amdan Khan, is determined.
“A temporary injunction doth issue, restraining both the applicant and the respondents, their agents or any other persons deriving their authority from the respondents from sub-dividing, leasing, mortgaging, selling, transferring or in any other way dealing with land and property comprised in Kyadondo block 255 plot 1260 at Munyonyo, Kyandondo LRV KCCA 5 folio 6 plot 8E Mujulizi Road, Makindye Division and unregistered land at Mulungu Munyonyo along Mujulizi Road Makindye Division measuring 3.15 acres until the final determination of High Court civil suit no.589 of 2021,” the October 15 court injunction reads in part.
Maj Gen Otafiire and Mr Khan have locked horns over the contested piece of land since June 2021. The land wrangle began after the minister allegedly ordered his military guards to destroy property on the said disputed plot, claiming ownership. The prime piece of land is close to the Martyrs Shrine in Munyonyo and overlooks Lake Victoria.
The claims
On the one hand Mr Khan claims that he bought the land from a one Afanasic Temaligwe in 1979 and that has owned it ever since then as a kibanja holder.
On the otherhand, Maj Gen Otafiire claims that he is a mailo owner of the same disputed land, which he claims to have bought from late Christopher Obey, then principal accountant in the Public Service ministry in 2011.
What minister says
In a June interview with Daily Monitor, Maj Gen Otafiire rejected Mr Khan’s claims of ownership of the land. “What you should have asked him is whether he has the title for that land, and if he claims that he is a kibanja holder, can he present receipts showing payments of rent to the previous owner of the land because the evidence of the Kibanja is payment of rent.” He argued that if Mr Khan bought kibanja in 1979, he should already have been compensated in 1991.
