Encouraged by their majority in Parliament, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) look set to win the battle over the highly controversial Land amendment bill that has been rejected by Buganda Kingdom leadership and political leaders from Northern Uganda.

When NRM caucus in Parliament sat on October 20, 2009, they resolved to pass the amendment bill to the 1998 Land Act with key highlights including a proposal to boost rights of tenants over land.

President Museveni and other NRM stalwarts, who are determined to see the bill through, argue that it will stop needless evictions of tenants by landlords which are sometimes carried out without prior notice and that it will force landlords to give sitting tenants the first priority to buy the land they occupy at a given time.

But the bill, brought on the floor of Parliament this week has, as expected caused a heated debate not just among the opposition MPs but also among NRM members themselves regarding its spirit, its timing and especially its practicability.

Opposition MPs have attacked the bill for what they say is its failure to squarely address problems regarding ownership of land in Uganda.

John Kawanga, MP Kalungu west, said the law is meant to undermine landlords on their own land. He adds that those who passed the 1998 law made a mistake because although they made Bibanja holders lawful, there is no where these lawful occupants are registered.

He added that tenants and the title holders didn't know the boundaries of the Bibanja holder and as a result the law wouldn't protect them because the title holders could allow them just a small piece and take the rest with no problem.

Makindye West MP Hussein Kyanjo said the bill violates the constitutional powers of landlords over ownership of property - land - by failing to protect them against illegal tenants who forcefully settle on land that is not theirs.

Kyanjo and others cited incidents in Makerere in Kampala, Buliisa in Bunyoro and Maddu-Ggomba where people have illegally settled on land that does not belong to them. The new bill seeks to legitimize, in a way, these people's claim over the land in question.

Without clear and transparent formulae on who is to benefit, Kyanjo argued, the fund may be misused to give disproportionate advantage to some sections of the population.
President Museveni had earlier instructed Parliament to stay the bill so that cabinet and the government could make adequate consultations and win support from areas like Buganda where it had been broadly rejected.

However its introduction now, when government-Mengo relations are at their worst since the NRM took over power in 1986, is cited by many as a sign that it is done with wrong intensions and that it does not have wide political appeal. Some like Sam Njuba say it is meant to show who is powerful and not solve any land tensions, he added that it may instead lead to more social tensions.

Some of the NRM MPs seemed to support the bill with reservations. Many urged government to give the tenants money in form of the land fund to allow them to buy out the interests of the title holders.

In addition, out of the over fifty MPs from Buganda on the NRM side less than 5 attended the discussion of the bill. This was reminiscent of a similar debate over federal when 47 out of 60 MPs stayed away at the time.