A Kenyan man has been accused of land grabbing in Uganda.
Ambrose Wekesa Murunga, a Kenyan security expert who has been serving in a powerful position in Uganda’s police force was apprehended and detained last week following alleged fraudulent land dealings.
According to Daily Nation, Uganda’s Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters ordered for his arrest. He was appointed as a technical advisor to Inspector General of Uganda Police Gen Kale Kayihura in 2004 in unclear circumstances.
The commission headed by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire heard that the accused falsified his nationality to acquire more than 400 acres of land, under Mailo tenure (a land ownership system in Uganda) in Gayaza Village, Butuntumula sub-county in Luwero District, in contravention of the Constitution and the Land Act.
Murunga was also accused of tax evasion and operating his business without a work permit, a requisite requirement for any national doing business in Uganda.
The Commission also heard that he was in possession of a land title which was fraudulently procured with the help of the land registrars at Bukalasa land registration office in Luweero district.
He also stands accused of criminalizing, arresting and detaining residents he found on the land.
Justice Bamugemereire said Murunga abused his office by using the police to terrorize residents in evicting them out of their native land.
“You actually abused your office, used our police officers to go and terrorize those citizens who had lawfully, quietly and peacefully been living on their land.
We would like to know the land officers you were working with and the big people you are working for or helping you to do that,”stated the Judge.
He has so far acquired over 430 acres of land where 200 occupants were terrorized and detained in a bid to have them surrender the land, evidence before the commission show.
His fraudulent land dealings were mainly in Luwero district where hundreds have been left with nothing to hold onto.
Mr Raymond Jjagwe, an assistant superintendent of police in Luweerowho was accused of facilitating arrests and torture of the residents. The commission has since ordered for his arrest.
Murunga has however, defended his stay in Uganda noting “My wife, too, was Ugandan, but importantly I was asked by the government to come and work here.”
“I was head hunted by the late Brig Noble Mayombo to come and work for government. It was 2005/2006 that the late (Mayombo) came directly to meet me and my company got a contract with the government of Uganda and I was seconded to work here,” he said.
He told the commission he is a qualified lawyer from Kings College in London but is currently farming. He said he grows bananas and coffee at Kiboga and Luwero.
He added his deceased mother Ugandan national had property in Lugazi and Jinja and that he was born in Mulago Hospital, Kampala.
But his particulars show he was born in Trans Nzoia in Kenya where his father lives to date.
Before moving to Uganda, he served as a policeman in Kenya and was a newspaper columnist with Daily Nation.