Maverick Lands Junior Minister Dr Sam Mayanja has revealed that President Yoweri Museveni has approved a multibillion project to rehabilitate all Buganda Kingdom royal tombs and he has assigned him to supervise the entire project.
Exclusively speaking to Ono Bwino, Mayanja said that after the President’s meeting with Buganda Kingdom clan heads, Princes and Princesses who pleaded with him to help them in rehabilitating all the Kingdom royal tombs which are in a sorry state, he first assigned Marry Babirye Babalanda the minister in charge of presidency to study the entire situation and advise him accordingly.
Highly placed State House sources said that after Babalanda’s report, the President assigned his longtime confidant Lt Gen Proscovia Nalweyiso to verifiy and her verification report matched with the findings of the minister.
“Because these tombs are sitting on land and being a minister in charge of lands, I have to verify that those tombs are sitting on the land titles registered in the trustees of the linages of the king buried in that particular tomb,” Mayanja said
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He explained that Museveni decided to first verify the ownership of the tombs to avoid people who will come after the rehabilitation of the tombs and claim ownership of the land and start pressuring government to compensate them or they evict the Kings’ remains from their land.
He confirmed that they will start with Ssekabaka Kagulu Tebucwereke tombs in Wakiso district noting that last week, he visited the tombs, engaged the people taking care of the tomb, verified the land ownership and he warned that whoever is threaten to grab the said land will be prosecuted because government surveyors are going to resurvey the entire land and demarcate the boundaries.
Mayanja said that the project is going to cover more than 100 tombs and each one is going to be given a land title to make sure that the Kingdom leadership does not interfere with the management of the tombs insisting that it is not fair to prioritize Kasubi tombs where King Ronald Mutebi’s grandfathers and father were buried while other kings’ tombs are neglected and left in a sorry state.
However, the development comes at a time when the Kingdom leadership has started the process of registering all clans headquarters, kingdom tombs and other culture sites land into the names of trustees and land titles are going to be kept at Buganda Land Board to stop people from grabbing clans land and other Kingdom cultural sites.
Caretakers of different Kingdom cultural sites protest the move to keep the land titles with Buganda Land Board, the Kingdom’s agency responsible for managing all the Kingdom land and other properties including buildings, claiming that officials in the said agencies are responsible for ongoing cultural sites land grabbing.
Even though Minister Mayanja boasted of being ready to execute the presidential assignment, he is in bad books with Buganda Kingdom leadership which accuse him of publicly undermining the person of Kabaka Mutebi and the entire Kingdom leadership after he accused them of operating illegally.
