More than 30 workers at Wakiso Lands office have been sacked on the orders of State Minister Dr Sam Mayanja over fraud.
The workers, who are accused of demanding for bribes to transfer land titles and other land transactions, have been replaced.
The new staff began work on Wednesday when the minister reopened the Wakiso Lands Office a week after he closed it to pave way for investigations.
While reopening the offices on Wednesday, Minister Mayanja instructed the new staff not to allow any broker in premises.
“Unfortunately, the unprofessional agents had turned the Wakiso and few other land registries in the country as places they can easily identify unsuspecting landowners who are ignorant of the land registration procedures and fees payable,” he said.
“Therefore, the government can’t allow commercial vendors and hawkers near land registries and national land information centers as they have the capacity to steal and profit from accessing registered and secured data, or even to sabotage the nation,” Mr Mayanja added.
He also ordered the staff to clear all the backlogs and eliminate the manual system and turn to the computerized one.
“I am going to install a facility at the ministry which will monitor what’s going on in different Land offices,” he warned, adding that he will be conducting weekly meetings to review the transactions at the office.
The move comes after people complained that Wakiso lands officers were hiding land titles and also asking for a lot of money from people before doing any transactions.
The minister ordered the new workers to always do land transactions in less than 24 hours.
“This is the new staff. I tell you don’t share your passwords. We expect you to serve Ugandans well,” Ms Grace Kagoro who is in charge of digitizing the lands ministry said.
