The Solicitor General has warned Departed Asians Property Custodian Board officials to stop resurrecting matters concerning departed Asian properties which were put to rest by his office.
The no holds barred letter dated June 15, 2021 in which a riot act was read to the latter, follows the move to repossess a property on plot 14C, FRV 78 folio 19 Martin Road, Kampala.
GENESIS
DAPCB had on February 26, 2021 wrote to the LC1 Chairperson Martin Road indicating that the board was verifying the said property in his area and the purpose of writing to his was to provide vacant possession of the property.
“DAPCB is in the process of verifying and winding up all its activities on Expropriated Properties of which this property is among the properties to be verified. Further the occupants are illegally occupying this property without any colour of authority to which they are required to pay rent arrears since 1972 to date. Therefore, they should provide vacant possession to enable the Minister of Finance to deal in the property. The purpose of this letter is to request the occupants to provide vacant possession of Plot 14c Martin Road Kampala not later than 60 days from receipt of this letter,” reads a letter from Hirome Sabbehe Mayanja, Chairman of Divestiture committee of DAPCB.
RIOT ACT
However, the Solicitor General later informed DAPCB that the Minister responsible for Finance has no authority to cancel a certificate of repossession previously he/she issued and that the power is reserved for the High Court of Uganda under the section 15 of the expropriated properties act cap 87.
“Reference is made to your letter no CB2672 dated 26 February 2021 addressed to the LC1 Chairperson, Martin Road (copy attached) on the captioned subject which was brought to the attention of the Hon. Attorney General on 16, April 2021 in his capacity as principal legal advisor of the government by M/s Sharma Import and Export (U) Limited, the registered owners of the property captioned. The letter requires the occupants/registered owners of the property to vacate it to enable the Minister for Finance to deal in the property,” the letter reads, adding “The Hon. Attorney General has advised as follows: That he has previously advised on such matters vide his letter to the Hon Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development ref.ADM31/197/01 dated 15 August. That as per the said letter of August 2019, the minister responsible for Finance (or Departed Asians Property Custodian Board) “(“The Board”) has no powers to cancel a certificate of repossession previously issued by him or her (See Mohan Kiwanuka vs Asha Chand SCCA No14 of 2002). That power is reserved for the High Court of Uganda under section 15 of the Expropriated Properties Act Cap.87. It is also the position of the law that a certificate (of title) is conclusive proof of title to land, unless it has been proved that the title was procured through fraud.”
The Attorney General in his letter indicated that from the available record, the property in caption had been repossessed by its pre 1972 owners on the authority of a certificate issued by the minister. “That the purported claim of ownership or authority over the property by the board, as has been the case with respect to other long possessed properties in the recent past, is downright illegal, and is unnecessarily exposing his office and the government at large to costly litigation. That this office therefore, will disassociate itself from illegal action being contrived by the board in this particular matter and urges the board to desist from further interfering with registered owner’s constitutionally protected right to the property in question,” reads the Solicitor General’s letter of June 15, 2021.
Early this year, Parliament learnt that there had been fraud in the management of the properties of the Asians who were expelled from Uganda in 1972 by the late President Idi Amin.
In a report presented by the former Chairperson of the Subcommittee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase), Ibrahim Kasozi, it was discovered that there were irregularities in management, compensation and repossession of properties owned by the departed Asians.
The Asians, after their expulsion left behind property, which included businesses, stock and real estate. Some of the property was repossessed yet owners had been fully compensated by the government of Uganda.
The Committee established that in 1977, talks between the Uganda government and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees were held in Entebbe to discuss compensation of property left behind by departed Asians.
“In this meeting, it was agreed that land was not compensable under Ugandan law since it was owned by Ugandans. Buildings over 10 years were regarded as amortized and only buildings five years or newer were to be valued and compensated at the 1972 market value,” Kasozi said.
He added that it was therefore established that part of the compensation to the departed Asians had been paid by the government in 1976 with shs13.4 million paid to the Indian government.
Kasozi noted that through the UNHCR, Uganda agreed to pay shs40.4 million as compensation to persons of undetermined nationality for assets left in Uganda. According to the Committee, for years, the board has had issues ranging from failure to effectively supervise the activities of the secretariat to outright corruption and negligence.
“Although Section 5 (1) of the Assets of Departed Asians Act mandates the board to sit at least once every month, the six ministers on the board are always too busy to meet and have not done so for 10 years,” the report stated in part.
The committee report added that some properties had ended up in the hands of unscrupulous individuals who had then transferred the same to bona-fide purchasers for value without notice.
“At compilation of the report, a total of 119 former Asian owners had been compensated to a tune of shs1.765 billion,” the report adds.
Kasozi said that most fraud relating to expropriated properties was propagated through the powers of attorney with certain individuals being at the centre of such fraudulent dealings.
“People like Mohammed Alibhai went to countries like Canada where these Asians are, obtained generic powers of attorney, processed repossessions, fraudulently obtained certificates of repossession from the Board and went on to manage or even owned the properties in issue to the detriment of the real owners who would never enjoy the benefit or repossession,” he said.
The Committee recommended among others that fraudulently acquired repossession certificates be cancelled and reverted to the government.
” The perpetrators should be prosecuted and repossessions whose former owners did not physically return to manage the properties as required by law should be cancelled,” Kasozi added.
Theodore Ssekikubo (NRM, Lwemiyaga County) concurred with the report saying that the fraudsters must be arrested.
“The late Idi Amin paid for these properties fully. These fraudsters however forged the documents and took the properties.The Custodian Board has outlived its usefulness and those culpable should be charged,” Ssekikubo said. Budadiri West MP, Nathan Mafabi backed that the Board should be dissolved.
“We should direct that the Board is closed, the people working in it are arrested and taken to Luzira Maximum Prison because they are stealing public property,” he stated.
Additional reporting by Watchdog Uganda.