Tycoon Ham wants Wakiso lands boss Bashir Juma prosecuted over conflict of interest in Kigo land case

KAMPALA, UGANDA: Businessman Hamis Kiggundu has petitioned the Uganda Surveyors Registration Board (USRB) to take disciplinary action against a Wakiso District surveyor Mr Bashir Juma Kizito who he accuses of an alleged conflict of interest in the 140-acre Kigo land case.

The complaint stems from the ownership of a 140-acre piece of land at Kigo, Wakiso District, which is being disputed by the Buganda Land Board (BLB) and the businessman.

Through the petition dated September 19 filed before the USRB and the Institute of Surveyors of Uganda (ISU), Ham through his company Kiham Enterprises Ltd accuses Mr Bashir Juma of authoring a survey report which the Kabaka is relying on in his quest to have their freehold titles cancelled yet he himself was part of the Wakiso district lands staff who authorized his land titles.

The petition further states in May during the public hearing of the BLB complaint by the commissioner of Land Registration, Mr Kizito introduced himself as a district staff surveyor [a senior government position], a representative of Buganda Land Board, and a lawful attorney of the Kabaka (King) of Buganda, something the businessman contends and labels as gross conflict of interest in the ongoing case.

“Wakiso District Land Board as a public office granted us permission to obtain freehold land titles over former public land. Currently, Bashir [Kizito] works as the district staff surveyor of Wakiso and has actual notice of our freehold land titles and truly participated in the process of their creation by checking and okaying the sub-divisions that happened on July 14, 2020. However, to date, it is again Bashir Juma Kizito on top of the cancellation game of our freehold certificates of titles for our land situated in Kigo. This is a gross conflict of interest…, the very reason we are presenting him before the two bodies that govern professional and practicing surveyors in the country,” reads the complaint in part.

the Surveyors Board Responds

In a September 30 letter, the Institute of Surveyors of Uganda acknowledged receipt of the complaint. “This case has been considered by the ISU disciplinary committee and decided that it is forwarded to the SRB for action as it involves a complaint concerning disciplinary action against a registered surveyor,”  reads the response.

The institute vice president Mr Aloysius Gonza when contacted said the matter will be handled by the newly-appointed Surveyors Registration Board.

Mr Kizito declined to comment on the matter.  “When matters are in court, we restrain from commenting until the court has pronounced itself,”  he said.

Last week, the High Court issued an order stopping the commissioner for Land Registration from cancelling the four land titles for Kiham Enterprises until the determination of the pending case.