NARO’s 90

Aug 22, 2023

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The National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) has decried the lack of funds to title its land totalling 90 hectares in various districts, including Jinja, Mbarara and Kabarole, among others.

The entity’s director general, Dr Yona Baguma, said this has cost the organisation as they are struggling with cases of encroachment on their land in the courts of law.

Timothy Kakembo, the NARO’s legal officer.

“We have eight court suites that we have filed over issues of encroachment. We have also been sued over the same issue. Some of the cases are in advanced stages but there are others we are handling amicably,” Baguma revealed.

In one of the cases, Timothy Kakembo, the NARO’s legal officer revealed that a one Henry Obbo together with 21 others filed a suit against Uganda Land Commission (ULC), NARO, and the Attorney General claiming the Government took their land without compensating them.

Baguma was on Tuesday, August 22, 2023, speaking during NARO’s meeting with MPs on the parliamentary committee of commissions, statutory authorities and state enterprises (COSASE) where the entity was responding to queries raised by the Auditor General in NARO’s financial statements for the year 2021/2022.

COSASE chairperson Joel Ssenyonyi.

According to NARO, ULC accepted to give the entity lease for all the land, but for six years nothing has happened.

“The land titling has been pending since 2017. We need help in order to acquire the titles of the land we have. The government should make it a priority to avail funds to value the land we have because this is affecting our activities in a number of ways,” Baguma said.

Auditor General’s report

In his audit report on NARO’s financials for 2021/2022, Auditor General John Muwanga noted that 90 pieces of land with an unknown total acreage were recorded in the entity’s land register, but not recorded in the Government Financial Management Information System (GFMIS) fixed asset module.

In addition, he noted that the entity did not transfer 15 pieces of land measuring 4,609,775 hectares held into the name of the custody of Uganda Land Commission (ULC).

Baguma explained that since ULC has never granted them land titles, it means that the land they have is co-registered with the board.

Members of Parliament faulted NARO for not following up on the titling of the land and yet they are the ones that use it.

The legislators also criticised NARO over irregular procurements cited in their financial statements for 2021/2022 which the entity had earlier failed to explain.

The Audit report has since pinned NARO over various accountability irregularities including irregular procurements, ghost staff and incomplete activities reported as complete.

In their financials, the entity reported four outputs with 12 activities worth sh48.497 to have been completed but the auditor general noted that the projects were partially implemented.

A report submitted to the MPs also indicated that the entity had revised the procurement from the initial contract value of sh14b to sh18b without proper explanation.

Additionally, although the Auditor General noted that the entity had 836 filled positions leaving a balance of 159 positions vacant and representing 84 percent staffing levels, the MPs found out from the documents submitted to them that the entity had over 30 employees who were since retired it its human resource accountability.

The accounting officer explained that there was an error in their statements and supposed that the number quoted by the auditor general also includes 821 contract staff who he alleged are not directly paid through the payroll.

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