Who is a Kibanja Holder – Pamba Egan

Who is a Kibanja Holder?

Many People talk about the word Kibanja, many people use it in their conversations in relation to land matters but many don’t know what it means, they just use it #WhisperEyeNews

What does it mean?

The 1928 Busulu & Envujju law introduced the idea of what is known as ekibanja. This law clearly defines the meaning of the word Kibanja, there is what they used to call domestic Kibanja & economic Kibanja.

Domestic Kibanja is a piece of land on which you have your domestic house, where you have your crops for domestic use & where you keep your animals & it could measure an acre during that time
WHEREAS
An Economic Kibanja is where the landlord could authorize a person to cultivate cash crops on the land for economic gain but incase he wished to plant on an area exceeding one acre he had to seek the permission of the landlord.

A kibanja could be got from a mailo land owner and ownership was indicted by a receipt subject to payment of SHS 10 by then though today the fees have been revised and increased a bit under the Annual Nominal Ground Rent Regulations 2011 issued by the Minister of lands housing & urban development
Bijanja holders in the city pay SHS UGX 50,000
BIJANJA holders in municipalities pay SHS UGX 40,000.
Bibanja holders in town councils pay UGX SHS 30,000
Bibanja holders under town boards pay SHS UGX 20,000
BIBANJA HOLDERS IN VILLAGES PAY 5,000 UGX SHS

Once a payment was made a receipt could be issued which was an equivalence of a title deed.

It follows that there can’t be a Kibanja Holder on any land tenure other than a mailo because originally it was created under the mailo’s interest.

Later on, in 1966 a recommendation was made to the effect that a Kibanja interest should be evidenced by way of a title deed as opposed to a receipt but unfortunately, this went futile as Obote later in 1967 abolished the mailo land tenure as well as kingship in Uganda when he passed the Republican constitution of Uganda 1967.

Despite the aforesaid, the constitution of 1995 revived the tenure system and the 1998 land act under section 29 categorically recognizes a Kibanja Holder as a lawful occupant & their interest is evidenced by a certificate of occupancy which they can even use to acquire loans from financial institutions.

That’s the meaning of a Kibanja Holder
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