A Pilot Scheme for Grant of Land Titles in Uganda
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1960.tb00176.x |
| Date | 01 July 1960 |
| Author | J. C. D. Lawrance |
| Published date | 01 July 1960 |
A Pilot
Scheme
for
Grant
of
Land Titles in Uganda
by J. C. D.
LAWRANCE
Permanent
Secretary,
Ministry
of
Lands
and
Mineral
Development
Introduction
TEN
thousand
square
miles
of
land
in
Uganda
are
held in individual registered
title mostly as a result
of
grants
made
to Africans in accordance
with
the
agreements concluded
at
the
beginning
of
this
century
between
the
British
Government
and
the
rulers
and
chiefs
of
the
kingdom
of
Buganda,
Ankole
and
Toro.
The
remaining
seventy thousand
square
miles
of
land
in
the
Protectorate
are
vested in
the
Crown,
but
Africans
have
the
right
under
the
Crown
Lands
Ordinance,
except in
Buganda
Province
and
in towns, to occupy
Crown
land
without
lease or licence.
The
published policy of
the
Uganda
Government
declares
that
this
rural
Crown
land
is
"held
in trust for
the
use
and
the
benefit
of
the
African
population."!
Despite this declaration
of
policy there persists,
particularly
in
the
northern
districts
of
the
Protectorate, abelief
that
the
reason for vesting ownership
of
land
in
the
Crown
is to
enable
Government
to alienate
land
to foreigners.
This
feeling of insecurity is heightened by shortage
ofland
in the
more
populous
districts,
and
increasingly tends to bedevil relationships between
Government
and
the
people in
any
matter
even remotely concerned
with
land. Even before
the
publication
of
the
report
of
the
East Africa
Royal
Commission in 1955,
the
Uganda
Government
had
given consideration to
the
grant
of legal title to
Africans in
rural
areas in
the
hope of dispelling or lessening this distrust.
The
East
Africa
Royal
Commission
commented
in detail on
the
failure of
customary
tenures to
meet
the
needs of accelerated economic development
and
growing
land
shortage,
and
recommended
that
land
tenure
policy
"should
aim
at
the
individualization
of
land
ownership,
and
at
adegree
of
mobility in
the
transfer
and
disposition
of
land
which
...
will
enable
access to
land
for its economic
use."
A
White
Paper
was accordingly published by
the
Uganda
Government
early
in 1956
containing
a
number
of
proposals concerning
land
tenure
the
most
important
of
which
was a proposal to confirm individual customary
rights
of
ownership
over
land
by a process
of
adjudication
and
registration
of
title.s
This
gesture by
the
Uganda
Government
at
first aroused even
greater
suspicion
than
had
previously existed,
and
in some districts resulted in active
and
violent opposition.
This
suspicion was
undoubtedly
accentuated
by
ignorance, for few people
understand
the
present legal status
of
land
or
the
ways
in
which
customary
tenures
are
hindering
agricultural
improvement
and
are
contributing
to increased insecurity.
One
of
the
fears most widely
prevelant
and
most frequently expressed was
that
grant
of
title to Africans would involve
division
of
the
land
among
the
existing
population
in small plots
of
fixed acreage,
and
the
appropriation
by
Government
of
the
remaining
land
for disposal to
foreigners.
It
is,
of
course, also surprising
that
in a
country
in
which
thousands
1
Land
Policy of the Protectorate Government in
Uganda.
Uganda
Gazette,
Vol.
XUII;
No. 30; 1950.
2
Land
Tenure
Proposals.
Government
Printer,
Entebbe, 1955.
135
To continue reading
Request your trial