Councilors in Bisheshe Division, Ibanda district yesterday (September,14th) suspended council indefinitely in protest over the Ibanda Municipality leaders’ failure to secure government land from illegal occupants.

Perez Tukwatanise, the division council speaker, said the councilors are not happy with the municipality leadership for never implementing the division’s resolutions on the land grabbers. While moving the motion to suspend council sitting, Anna Tumuhairwe (Karangara ward), said they wanted to send a clear message to the “municipal leaders so they can act on the issue of land grabber. 

Earlier, division chairman Johnson Kanyomozi, said council has been allocating money for titling the lands in the division since 2018, noting that none of its 23 pieces of land is titled. He threaten to mobilise LC one and two leaders in the division to join councilors in a protest against the land grabbers and municipality leadership, if they continue ignoring their concerns on the issue.

Some of the contested land hosts Bisheshe trading centre, but the occupants pay ground rent to the division. Some of the encroachers have put up schools and others planted eucalyptus forests on the land.