Govt fined Shs 1bn over Uganda Motors’ Kireka land loss 

The Supreme court has ordered the government to pay over Shs 1 billion after it ruled in favour of Uganda Motors Limited against the Attorney General.

In a lead judgement written by justice Catherine Bamugemereire, the Supreme court found that the failure by the registrar of titles to lodge a caveat on a disputed five-acre piece of land located at Banda occasioned a loss to Uganda Motors, a company dealing in car sales.

“It is not enough for an individual to have a duty of care and then breach that duty by not living up to the standard of conduct expected of them. The conduct ought to cause the damage that the claimant has suffered. The officers in the Lands ministry are largely responsible for the loss of land occasioned by their omissions,” Bamugemereire wrote in her lead judgment.

The appeal by Uganda Motors in the Supreme court followed Uganda Motors’ loss both in the High court and Court of Appeal, where it was found that the loss of land had been occasioned by the court and not the registrar of titles.

The two junior courts had dismissed Uganda Motors’ claims to recover land measuring 5.5 acres, at Kireka/Banda in Wakiso district. According to court records, Uganda Motors was summarily sued by Directel (U) Ltd to recover a debt of Shs 7.6 million for unpaid advertising services.

The court allowed the suit and therefore led to Uganda Motors losing the land to Directel, which it subsequently sold to Emmanuel Mwebaze. General Motors applied to lodge a caveat on the certificate of title forbidding any transfer of proprietorship of the disputed land.

However, the caveat was received by the registrar of lands on 12 July 2000 at 10:10 am and was never registered. The land was instead subdivided on the very day that the caveat was lodged, and other proprietors, David Mugume and Abraham Arapundiwa were separately registered on it.

Five days later, David Mugume transferred part of his land to Arthur Mukwatanise.  Uganda Motors filed an application in the High court challenging the transfers. Uganda Motors and Directel agreed to settle out of court, which led to the former to be reinstated as the proprietor of the land.

Dissatisfied, Mukwatanise, who was now one of the new owners, filed a case in court in 2002 challenging the consent judgement, which he said was entered without his knowledge. Court ordered that Mukwatanise be reinstated and Uganda Motors’ restoration be cancelled.

In 2006, Uganda Motors filed a case against the Attorney General claiming compensation for loss of land. The High court ruled against Uganda Motors, arguing that it was not entitled to compensation from the government since the loss of its land was due to court orders. This view was upheld by the Court of Appeal.

This prompted Uganda Motors’ appeal in the Supreme court. In her judgement, Bamugemereire faulted the Appeals Court for failure to evaluate all the evidence on file.

“I had the opportunity to carefully review the judgment of the High court, in which the trial judge accepted that the failure to register the caveat was not justified. However, he erroneously ruled that the appellant lost due to the court orders, rather than the omission by the land registrar. The learned justices of appeal shared the same view as the trial judge… This reasoning is not backed by fact. It is trite that the appellate court may interfere with a judgment of a trial court if the trial court is shown to have overlooked any material feature in the evidence. Had the learned justices of Appeal critically examined the evidence on record, they would have found that the failure to register the caveat on the title was a material fact and would not have concluded as they did that the loss of land was precisely due to court orders,” the judgement of Bamugemereire reads in part.

The justice therefore ruled that government should compensate Uganda Motors with Shs 900 million in special damages at 10 per cent interest since the first court decision was made in 2006 and Shs 100 million in general damages at 10 per cent interest but from the date of the Supreme court ruling.

The other justices on the panel were Percy Night Tuhaise, Elizabeth Musoke, Steven Musota and Monica Mugenyi.