Seasoned Kampala based commercial lawyer Dr Sam Mayanja has narrated the challenging moments he and his family went through after President Museveni announced him as his junior Minister of lands in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development
Speaking to Ono Bwino, Mayanja said that Mengo radicals were the first to come out publicly and protest his appointment insisting that his appointment was a sign of undermining Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi on grounds that on several occasions, he has been making statements undermining the person of Kabaka.
“I’m told that efforts were made by sending a delegation and messages to the President to drop my name in his new cabinet after he was elected in 2021. But because the President understands my capacity in dealing with land matters and my loyalty, he ignored them. He advised me to use government systems when executing my assignments,” Mayanja said.
He added that he decided to use his first days in office moving around the country studying land problems affecting each part of the country.
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He reached to a conclusion that the biggest land problems were in Buganda and decided to use his expertise, energy and power to solve these issues.
He narrated that the major area of concern was Wakiso district land office, he stormed the offices without the knowledge of the staff and found out that land dealers were the ones running the office and government was losing billions of shillings in fraud at the said office.
“Without knowing that staff at Wakiso district land office were deployed by their god fathers for a purpose, with immediate effect I fired them and directed that new Ministry of Lands staff replace them. I will never forget the pressure I went through in that period. I received scaring phone calls even from powerful people in this country condemning me that what I did was wrong and was going to disrupt the running of the government,” Mayanja said.
He added that when he reported back to office, he was isolated and no one wanted to talk to him, everyone was condemning him. An emergency meeting was called to punish him but he stood his ground and insisted that Ugandans should be served in the right way instead of allowing mafias to run and take over government offices to use them to seal deals.
“I was told that the angry staff were planning to attack and strangle me inside my office. I remember an incident where I sent my bodyguard to go with my driver to pick something for me and someone with a lot of force knocked on my office door, I jumped and hid under my table thinking that they have come for my life,” Mayanja said.
He added that the very soon, the President summoned him and assured him of his support but insisted on advising him to use government systems when doing his work.
Mayanja said that from then, he always involves State House Anti-Corruption Unit to help him with the investigations into fraud in land management and transaction and the President is happy with the move because he directly supervises Brig Gen Henry Isoke the unit’s commander.
It was agreed that a team of experts should be put in place to guide on how to deal with errant staff especially those working at Wakiso district land office and currently the situation has been streamlined.
Only land owners, lawyers, bankers, land surveyors are the ones allowed at the office premises to transact land deals not land dealers as it was before.
However, he said that he suffered a setback when one of his confidant Grace Kagolo who was an expert in digital land management system died under unclear circumstances.
He further told this website that for him, he is still on track and pleaded with Ugandans to vote for Museveni in the ongoing presidential elections so that he can conclude the huge projects in the pipeline.
“You cannot allow your country to be used to test leaders, Museveni is already tested and he knows what it means to run a country. Running a country is different from running a music group where people sing songs without serious messages,” Mayanja said.
He revealed that he has supervised the building of a system where the President, a minister and other stakeholders can follow online all the land transactions made on any particular day and government is collecting a lot of money from land transaction.
He said that at Wakiso land office alone, which he thoroughly cleaned, government collects more than Shs6bn a day in taxes.
Wakiso is followed by Kampala, Mukono, Mpigi, Masaka, Mityana and other districts.
Mayanja a founding partner at the famous Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) and before being appointed a minister, he was a personal lawyer to President Museveni and worked in different international bodies including World Bank.
