The Ugandan government has launched a nationwide exercise to identify, verify and document every piece of public land 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 ambitious land management reforms in recent years. Its goal is to create, for the first time, a single national database of government-owned land, making it easier to know what the state owns, where it is located and whether it is properly protected. Announcing the programme 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 change how government land is identified, registered and managed. “This is not just about registration. It is about protecting the assets that belong to the people of Uganda,” Ntabazi said. The exercise comes against the backdrop of long-standing problems that have affected 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 In other cases, boundaries remain unclear because records are incomplete, outdated or scattered across different government offices. Those weaknesses have often made public land vulnerable to illegal occupation, fraudulent transactions and costly court battles over ownership. According to the ministry of Lands, government land accounts for an estimated 23 per cent of Uganda’s total land area. Yet only 26.16 per cent of that land has been formally titled. That means nearly three- quarters of public land lacks complete legal documentation, making it more difficult for authorities to prove ownership when disputes arise. A land title is an official legal document that confirms ownership of a piece of land. Without it, even government institutions can struggle to defend public property against competing claims or illegal occupation. Officials believe creating a complete inventory will close those gaps by ensuring every government-owned property is properly identified, surveyed and recorded in one system. The programme will be carried out in several stages. It will begin with coordination among government institutions and the collection of existing land records before moving to field verification, where surveyors and technical teams will physically visit sites across the country. Those teams, made up of surveyors, land officers and planners, will confirm land boundaries, verify ownership records and identify cases where public land has been encroached upon. The work will be carried out in consultation with local leaders and surrounding communities to ensure the information collected accurately reflects conditions on the ground. Once verified, the information will undergo legal validation before being incorporated into the National Land Information System, the government’s digital platform for managing land records. By bringing all government land information into one database, officials hope to eliminate inconsistencies that have developed over decades as different agencies maintained separate records. Ntabazi sought to reassure the public that the exercise is not intended to affect privately owned land. “The programme is not a land acquisition exercise, and it will not interfere with private property rights,” she said, adding that the inventory will be implemented within existing constitutional and legal safeguards. That distinction is important because land programmes can often create concern among communities about possible compulsory acquisition or changes in ownership. According to the minister, this exercise is limited to identifying and documenting land that already belongs to the government or is managed by public institutions. Implementation will be led by the Uganda Land Commission, working alongside the ministry of Lands, local governments and other government agencies responsible for public assets. Officials believe the benefits of the exercise will extend beyond simply producing better records. A comprehensive inventory could improve infrastructure planning by helping government agencies identify land available for new schools, hospitals, roads and other public projects before construction begins.The post Government launches nationwide land audit to protect public property appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.