By Namugerwa Martha
The ministry of lands has announced that it is going to cancel all illegal titling of the central forest reserves land.
The commissioner of land registration Mr. Opio Robert said that they are going to cancel all titles that fall within the central forest reserves and all land certificates issued in protected areas are illegal.
Opio said this during a discussion on the issue of Uganda’s forests at hotel Africana today.
“We are not sleeping over it, illegal land titles in protected areas are going to be cancelled,” Opio said.
He added that politicians are the ones fueling the encroachment on Uganda’s forests because they believe that they are above the law yet no one has the power to degazette or gazette a central forest reserve other than the parliament of Uganda only.
National Forestry Authority (NFA) director Micheal Mugisa also said that the land titles are issued without physical surveys in forests thus making the process very illegal and so far they are advocating for the cancellation of over 200 illegal land titles that they have discovered.
“In 1990, Uganda’s forest cover was nearly 24% which has gone down all the way to 9% currently now the government is committed to restore forest cover to 24% of the land cover by 2040 through initiatives,” Mugisa said.
He also added that the ministry of lands will have to tell them why they are issuing land titles in gazette areas.
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