Gov’t commits partial payment for Church of Uganda land in Entebbe

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government has committed to pay 10 billion Shillings to the Church of Uganda as partial payment for the 15-acre land housing its offices in Entebbe. The government offices on the land in question include Civil Aviation Authority, the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry and Part of Entebbe International Airport.

Details of the commitment have been presented to the Commercial Court, where a consultancy firm, Land Coin Limited dragged the church, in pursuit of a 7.3 billion Shillings payment for its services. The Church contracted the company in 2015 to verify the extent of interest on a piece of land housing certain government offices in Entebbe.

The company was supposed to get a 10 per cent commission of the total value of the land after submitting the report. Alternatively, the Company was supposed to get 15 per cent if the work is done up to the recovery of the said land.

However, the Chief Government Valuer tabled a report to Finance Minister Matia Kasaija and the Secretary to the Treasury Keith Muhakanizi indicating that the land was worth 48.9 billion Shillings, which, according to Land Coin Limited meant a commission of 7.3 billion Shillings to the consultancy.

But the Church only paid them a commission of 10 per cent resulting in a case of breach of contract.  But the Church, through its lawyer Barnabas Musinguzi has now tendered in court a letter from Finance showing how the Church of Uganda was going to be paid its partial settlement from which it would use to settle Land Coin’s claims.

The letter from Minister of Finance, Matia Kasaija, addressed to the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, His Grace Stanley Ntagali shows that an allocation of 10 billion Shillings was budgeted in the Financial Year 2019/2020 for partial settlement of the Government of Uganda obligation to the Church of Uganda.

Justice Wangutsi has directed the parties to go and come up with a consent agreement and return to court on October 10, 2019.

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