Ugandan Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development

The Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development is responsible for setting policy direction, national standards and coordination of all matters concerning lands, housing and urban development in Uganda. The Minister as of early 2013 was Daudi Migereko, who has represented Butembe County (Jinja District) in parliament since 1996 and has previously served as Minister for Energy and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Industry.

Role
The ministry's responsibilities include land administration, surveying and valuation, overseeing and registering land transactions and resolving land disputes. As such, the ministry plays a pivotal role in compensation claims arising from the government's purchase of customary land for oil and gas exploration and development, such as the land on which the Hoima refinery is to be built.

The ministry is also important in the area of urban planning for Uganda’s oil boomtowns. Fast growing unplanned growth centers within the Albertine Graben oil areas include Hoima, Kigorobya, and Bulisa, among other town centers that needed to be planned, according to the ministry.

Moratorium on land titles
In April 2012 the ministry put a moratorium on the issuance of land titles in oil exploration areas in the Albertine Graben, saying a physical planning process needed to be completed to regulate land acquisition and use before the moratorium could be lifted. The ban is a temporarily one which could be lifted as soon as the ministry finalizes its plan to develop the exploration area. The ministry set down the moratorium after the ministry registered many cases of land grabbing in the area which had resulted into illegal acquisition of land, according to Daudi Migereko.

=References=