Police in Mbale are warning potential land buyers against eyeing the land in Mbale.
The warning comes amid reports that Local council officials in Mbale have have been involved in illegal land transactions.
The LCs are accused of conniving with conmen to dupe unsuspecting buyers by selling to them ghost land.
The victims of the scam claim that local council officials participate by approving that the land rightly belongs to the seller and that it’s free from any encumbrance.
Diana Nandaula, the Eastern Uganda Police Spokesperson says that the police land division has investigated some of the cases where the LC’s sanctioned bogus land transaction.
Salangi Kisolo the LC1 Chairman of Namatala Ward in Mbale town, is currently being detained for allegedly presiding over the sale of the same piece of land to eight different people.
The police publicist in Mbale explains that Kisolo stamped eight different sales agreements that were made for the same plot of land. She says the police have now teamed up with the office of the resident district commissioner of Mbale to sensitize the community to be cautious when buying land in Mbale town.
The land division of the police has been overwhelmed by the number of complaints received from people who have been conned of millions of shillings, in dubious land transactions presided over by the local council officials.
Ibrahim Koire, a resident of Industrial Division is one of the victims of the land scam.
For Koire his dream of constructing a residential house in Namatala Ward was shattered when he entered into a dubious land transaction with Mustafa Mugeta. He says he purchased land from Mustafa in 2008 in the presence of the area LCs but was surprised a week later, when another person claimed he had also bought the same piece of land.
Koire has tried in vain to recover his money.
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Sarah Gimono, also fell prey to the scam when on 15th July 2011 she purchased the same piece of land that Koire had earlier been duped to buy. Gimono says one Mustafa Mugeta sold for him the plot 18 million shillings but she gave him a down payment of eight million shillings.
She realised later that the LC1 Chairman of Namtala Salangi Kisolo had duped her to buy a piece of land that had already been sold to several other buyers.
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Not done, Chairman Kisolo presided over the sell of the same plot to Sarah Kakai of Kireka at 30 million shillings.
Kakai says she gave the alleged owner of the land Mustafa Mugeta a down payment of 14 million shillings in the presence of the LC1 Chairman Salangi Kisolo. Kakai later realized she had bought ‘air’.
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The LC1 Chairman Salangi Kisolo has been arrested over the scam.
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