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The minister of justice Norbert Mao has directed Attorney General Kiwanuka Kiryowa to begin preparations to find and install a new boss who will serve as administrator general for Uganda replacing Charles Kasibayo.
Kasibayo has been the boss for some time but he recently indicated he is tired of the job by applying for the job of becoming the high court judge. He was shortlisted and is among those to be interviewed by the judicial service commission.
This has made Mao to realize there will be a vacuum soon yet this is a very important office charged with managing dead people’s estates and property. But the other factor complicating Kasibayo’s stay as the administrator general relates to complaints of impropriety and inefficiency which have been raised by aggrieved Ugandans with a lot of accusing finger being directed at him as a person.
One of the complaints, which dented the administrator general’s office, Kasibayo personally and the ministry of justice as a whole, concerned the 70-year-old downtown businessman and property mogul Festo Kasajja also known as Kasajja & Sons.
The businessman, who owns arcades and commercial buildings in Kampala where he has been active since 1972, says Kasibayo acquiesced to the fraudulent cancellation of his title regarding the 1 acre of land he bought from the late Sendawula Sepuya beneficiaries or estate. The land is located in Mengo Kisenyi along Mulinga road not very far from Pastor David Kiganda’s church.
In his very damaging petition to the judicial service commission, Kasajja damaged Kasibayo by giving evidence why it would be unethical for him to be shortlisted and later on allowed to become a high court judge.
Kasajja showed that after clearing the Sepuya estate beneficiaries to sell the land to him at Ugx2.3bn, Kasibayo as administrator general turned around and caused cancelation of his title in favor of Kampala land dealer James Dagirira who became the new owner of the land.
Dagirira, who is the broker the administrator general’s office used to broker the deal, proceeded to transfer the same land to tycoon Bosco Muwonge who offered twice more money for the land than what Kasajja had offered.
Bosco Muwonge, who later on transferred the land to his company called Nterenfune, was keen to raise the 10 acres of land in that area of Kisenyi and sell the same to government at Ugx36bn per acre so that KCCA would relocate there hawkers the batembeyis, who had been evicted from the city streets. This is something lord mayor Erias Lukwago remains opposed to up to this day.
Kasajja has since opened up cases at state house anti-corruption unit against Dagirira, Kasibayo and John Karuhanga who was commissioner land registration as of that time.
The case was escalated to the DPP to prefer charges against the three. Kasajja says Kasibayo and Dagirira had tried to advise him to sell to Muwonge and when he refused the office of administrator general even tried to forcefully deposit Ugx2.7bn on his finance trust bank account as a way of justifying fraudulent cancelation of his land title.
He also got support of KCCA which wrote letters siding with him as the rightful owner of the land; besides letters of no objection authored by officers at the administrator general’s office. He also put a caveat on the land. He also has support of ministry of lands officials like Joseph Kibandi who have written letters indicating he remains the rightful registered owner of the land.
When they received his complaint, the judicial service commission bosses got their PS Rose Nassali to write to SHACU and DPP to confirm if it’s indeed true they have been investigating Charles Kasibayo at all regarding the fraudulent cancelation of the land title as is alleged by Festo Kasaija who is also armed with the favorable judgment of justice Henry Kaweesi.
Kasajja says that ordinary private citizens like himself will never get justice again anywhere in court once the JSC allows Charles Kasibayo to become a judge of the high court.
As the JSC does its work to see whether to disregard Kasibayo’s application or not, Festo Kasajja has also petitioned the same information to minister Norbert Mao who thinks there is need to do something aimed at cleaning up the rot at Charles Kasibayo-led administrator general’s office.
Mao has already ordered his juniors at the ministry to begin the recruitment process for a new administrator general to replace Kasibayo.
Kasibayo has since defended himself by telling his bosses at the ministry of justice that it would be injustice to punish him as a person for actions he did in his official capacity as administrator general.
There are also claims that officers like Mathias Mwanje, who tried to do the right thing by opposing the questionable cancellation of Festo Kasajja’s land title, were marginalized through being transferred from headquarters in Kampala to remote hard to reach administrator general stations in northern Uganda.
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