Government starts nationwide land audit to protect public assets

Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1146 EAT on Wednesday 8 July 2026

The Ugandan government has launched a nationwide exercise to identify, verify and document all public land in a bid to protect state property from encroachment, fraud and ownership disputes.

Officials say the initiative, known as the Comprehensive Government Land Inventory (GLI), is one of the country’s most significant land management reforms in recent years. It aims to establish, for the first time, a comprehensive national database of government-owned land, enabling authorities to accurately determine what the state owns, where it is located and whether it is adequately protected.

Speaking at the Uganda Media Centre on Friday, the Minister of State for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Harriet Ntabazi, described the inventory as a “transformational programme” that will fundamentally improve the identification, registration and management of public land.

“This is not just about registration. It is about protecting the assets that belong to the people of Uganda,” Ntabazi said.

The exercise comes amid longstanding challenges in the management of public land across the country. Many government institutions—including schools, hospitals, forests, security installations, wetlands, road reserves, ministries and local government facilities—occupy land that has never been formally surveyed or registered.

In many cases, property boundaries remain unclear because land records are incomplete, outdated or scattered across multiple government offices. These gaps have left public land vulnerable to encroachment, fraudulent transactions and protracted legal disputes over ownership.

According to the Ministry of Lands, government-owned land accounts for an estimated 23 per cent of Uganda’s total land area. However, only 26.16 per cent of that land has been formally titled, leaving nearly three-quarters without complete legal documentation and making it more difficult for authorities to defend public property when ownership is contested.

A land title is an official legal document that establishes ownership of a parcel of land. Without one, even government institutions can face significant challenges in protecting public land from competing claims, illegal occupation and fraudulent acquisition.

Officials say the comprehensive inventory will address longstanding gaps in public land management by ensuring every government-owned property is accurately identified, surveyed and recorded in a single national database. The exercise will be implemented in phases.

The first phase will involve coordination among government institutions and the collection of existing land records, followed by field verification, during which surveyors and technical teams will visit sites across the country.

The teams—comprising surveyors, land officers and physical planners—will verify land boundaries, confirm ownership records and identify cases of encroachment on public land.

The verification process will be conducted in consultation with local leaders and surrounding communities to ensure the information collected accurately reflects conditions on the ground.

Once verified, the data will undergo legal validation before being integrated into the National Land Information System, the government’s digital platform for managing land records.

By consolidating government land records into a single national database, officials hope to eliminate inconsistencies that have accumulated over decades as different institutions maintained separate and often incomplete records.

The Minister of State for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Harriet Ntabazi, sought to reassure the public that the exercise will not affect privately owned land.

“The programme is not a land acquisition exercise, and it will not interfere with private property rights,” Ntabazi said, adding that the inventory will be implemented in accordance with existing constitutional and legal safeguards.

She explained that the initiative is limited to identifying, verifying and documenting land that is already owned by the government or managed by public institutions, and does not involve compulsory land acquisition or changes in ownership.

Implementation of the programme will be led by the Uganda Land Commission in collaboration with the Ministry of Lands, local governments and other government agencies responsible for managing public assets.

-Observer

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