KAMPALA: Ugandan lawmakers are pushing for tighter controls over land registration, greater accountability for officials and the full integration of digital land records after an investigation found that failures within the country’s land administration system had allowed multiple and overlapping titles to be issued for the same property.
The proposals by Parliament’s Committee on Lands follow oversight visits to six Ministry of Lands zonal offices in Mukono, Wakiso, Masaka, Jinja, Mbale and Soroti, where MPs examined the performance of land administration systems and the problems associated with fraudulent and duplicate titles.
In a report presented to Parliament on Wednesday, November 11, committee chairperson Edson Rugumayo said inadequate due diligence by land officers was contributing to the issuance of multiple certificates of title over the same land.
The committee wants the National Land Information System (NLIS) fully operationalised, land records cleaned up and officials implicated in fraud investigated and prosecuted. It has also called for improvements in staffing and infrastructure at the ministry’s zonal offices.
The recommendations come against the backdrop of mounting concerns about land fraud, delays in processing applications and the ability of the state to protect legitimate property owners.
Shs50 billion price of a land registry mistake
One of the most significant cases highlighted by the committee involved Henley Property Developers Limited and the Attorney General.
The company acquired land in Mukono after conducting searches at the land registry, which confirmed the seller as the registered owner. It subsequently received a certificate of title.
However, the land was later found to overlap with an existing title. The registrar cancelled Henley’s title after discovering that the property had already been registered in the name of another owner.
Henley sued the government for compensation, arguing that it had relied on official land registry records when purchasing the property.
The High Court awarded the company Shs50 billion in compensation for the market value of the land. The Court of Appeal upheld the award, and the Supreme Court dismissed the Attorney General’s appeal in January 2024.
The Supreme Court’s decision left the compensation award in place. The Attorney General later sought a review of the judgment, but that application was dismissed in August 2026.
For the parliamentary committee, the case illustrates how errors in the land registration system can have consequences far beyond a dispute between private parties.
The state can end up paying substantial compensation when people rely on official records that turn out to be wrong. Ultimately, taxpayers carry the financial burden of mistakes made within public institutions.
MPs want land officers held personally accountable
The case has renewed calls for changes to Section 159 of Uganda’s Registration of Titles Act, which protects the registrar and people acting under the registrar’s authority from legal proceedings for acts or omissions carried out in good faith while exercising their statutory duties.
MP Boniface Okot, representing Kole South County, argued that the law should be amended to make officials personally accountable where negligence or misconduct results in wrongful registration.
“There is need for this House to amend Section 159 of the Registration of Titles Act, so that the land officer who is culpable in this matter, bears the burden of the mistake,” Okot said.
The proposal raises a difficult question for land administration: how should the law distinguish between an honest administrative error and negligence or deliberate misconduct?
The committee’s broader recommendations include investigating and prosecuting people involved in land fraud. However, changing the law to impose personal financial liability would require legislative action. The proposal should not be confused with an amendment that has already been passed.
Other MPs called for stronger verification before titles are issued.
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Eliab Naturinda, representing Ndorwa County West, said local council leaders should be involved in the processing of land titles, particularly when surveyors and valuers visit properties to verify boundaries.
He argued that local leaders could help establish who occupies or claims ownership of land and alert officials to disputes that may not be apparent from documents alone.
George Musisi, representing Kira Municipality, also proposed involving immediate neighbours in verifying ownership before a certificate of title is issued.
The suggestions reflect concern that land registration cannot rely solely on paperwork, particularly where boundaries, occupation and competing claims are disputed.
Digital system exists, but gaps remain
A central part of the proposed solution is the full operationalisation of Uganda’s National Land Information System, known as UgNLIS.
The digital platform was designed to integrate land registration, surveying, mapping, valuation and administration. It is intended to improve access to records, reduce opportunities for corruption and make it easier to verify ownership and process transactions.
Uganda has already established 22 Ministry of Lands zonal offices, with the digital system rolled out across the network. However, the existence of a digital platform has not eliminated fraud or administrative delays.
A June 2026 report by Daily Monitor, drawing on findings by the Auditor General, showed the scale of the problem.
Between the 2021/22 and 2024/25 financial years, the zonal offices received 934,645 land registration applications but completed 657,384, representing a completion rate of 70.3%.
The audit also found that 17 of the 22 zonal offices recorded 587 cases of land fraud over the four-year review period. Of these, 151 were recorded in 2024 alone.
The reported offences included fraudulent procurement of certificates of title, registration through false pretences and fraudulent land sales. The audit also identified weaknesses in staff training and controls for detecting forged documents.
The figures suggest that digitisation alone cannot resolve the problem. Digital records need to be accurate, updated and properly managed, while officials responsible for processing applications must be adequately trained and supervised.
The government’s own reform tracker, updated in August 2026, showed that UgNLIS was operational in 22 zonal offices, but a proposal to make it the sole legal source of truth for all land transactions had not yet started implementation.
Other outstanding reforms included addressing staffing gaps, publishing monthly performance dashboards for land offices and expanding mobile registration services to rural communities.
This is an important distinction. Having a digital system does not automatically mean that every land transaction is recorded, verified and processed through it. Where manual procedures continue alongside digital records, opportunities for inconsistencies and manipulation remain.
Suspension of special title certificates also criticised
The committee’s findings also addressed the Ministry of Lands’ earlier decision to suspend the issuance of Special Certificates of Title nationwide.
These certificates are used in circumstances where an existing duplicate title has been lost, damaged or destroyed, allowing a property owner to apply for a replacement under the law.
The ministry suspended their issuance on August 14, 2026, following complaints that the process was being exploited by people seeking to take over land belonging to others.
However, the parliamentary committee found that the ministry had not provided sufficient evidence to justify a nationwide suspension.
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Rugumayo said the decision affected legitimate applicants, including people whose titles had been lost or damaged and those seeking certificates through lawful court orders.
“Although the minister’s intentions were well-meaning, the suspension was not in accordance with the law and disrupted land transactions, access to credit, investment and government revenue,” he said.
The suspension was subsequently lifted on October 20, when Lands Minister Judith Nabakooba announced new guidelines intended to tighten verification and prevent fraudulent applications.
The revised procedures include the use of government surveyors, stronger verification and a 30-day notice period to give people with an interest in the property an opportunity to raise objections. The ministry also said the guidelines would be developed further through consultations before being translated into regulations.
The sequence highlights the challenge facing the government: closing loopholes that allow fraud without blocking legitimate property owners from accessing documents they need to protect or transact in their land.
Concerns over traditional land and title conversion
The debate also exposed concerns about the conversion of land titles, particularly where traditional land ownership arrangements are involved.
Kyankwanzi District Woman Representative Ann Nankabirwa urged the Ministry of Lands to investigate allegations involving the conversion of titles on Kabaka’s land into freehold titles.
She cited the case of Wamala Growers Cooperative Union, which had sought to renew a lease but encountered difficulties locating some of the relevant title records.
“When Wamala Growers Cooperative Union pursued a lease renewal, some of the titles could not be found until we discovered that the file had been converted into freehold,” Nankabirwa said.
Her intervention points to the importance of maintaining reliable historical records, particularly where land has been subject to different tenure arrangements and changes in ownership or registration.
Uganda’s land administration system recognises several tenure forms, including freehold, leasehold, customary and mailo. The latter is a distinctive tenure system with historical roots in the allocation of land in Buganda. Accurate records are therefore important not only for individual transactions but also for managing competing interests and claims over land.
What the proposed reforms mean for landowners
For ordinary landowners, buyers and investors, the consequences of fraudulent or overlapping titles can be severe.
A person may purchase land after conducting official searches and receiving documents that appear legitimate, only to discover later that another title exists over the same property. Such disputes can result in costly litigation, delays in development and uncertainty over ownership.
Problems with registration can also affect access to bank loans, since land is commonly used as security for credit. Where ownership is disputed or records cannot be verified, lenders may be reluctant to accept the property as collateral.
The committee’s recommendations are therefore about more than improving administrative efficiency. They concern the reliability of property rights, confidence in land transactions and the ability of citizens and businesses to use land as an economic asset.
Speaker Jacob Marksons Oboth directed the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development to offer permanent employment to land officers currently working on contract, arguing that this would help promote integrity in land administration.
Whether that measure, alongside digital integration and stronger supervision, will address the underlying problems remains to be seen.
The challenge for Uganda is to move beyond introducing digital systems and issuing new guidelines towards ensuring that land records are accurate, officials are accountable and citizens can trust the documents issued by the state.
Without that confidence, a certificate of title may offer far less security than the people who own the land believe it does.
