Hoima Catholic Diocese is locked up in a land row with a local resident, one Teddy Bujero, over the ownership of a four acre piece of land in Bujumbura, Hoima Municipality.
The wrangle started in October 2010 when the diocese planted eucalyptus trees on the contested land but the trees were allegedly uprooted by Bujero.
The matter was reported to Hoima police although Father Mathius Nyakatura, the Vicar General Hoima catholic diocese claims no action was taken on the suspect.
Mid last year, the diocese established a school, St James Secondary School, near the contested land and a school latrine was constructed on the contested land.
This prompted Bujero to sue the diocesan officials for criminal trespass and the case is currently before Hoima Magistrates Court.
In a letter dated December 4, 2011, addressed to Hoima criminal investigations chief in response to a police summon, Father Nyakatura says the diocese only knows Teddy Bujero as a daughter to Jacob Bujero, a former employee of Hoima Catholic Diocese who died some years ago and not a land owner.
Nyakatura adds that church land is not inheritable and therefore being a daughter of a former employee does not make Bujero the owner of the land.
The vicar general states that the diocese is the rightful owner of the land in question with a freehold title volume 49, folio 8 which was secured in 1936.
He accuses Bujero of blocking the school toilet on the contested land twice and vows that this will not deter any of the church’s development on the land.
Nyakatura says the diocese will pursue the issue until the land is secured.
Hoima catholic diocese headquarters in Bujumbura, Hoima Municipality, sits on more than 150 hectares and the land houses the diocesan employees and some tenants.
But Bujero, who leaves in Kiryatete, has stood her ground maintaining that the land belonged to her late father and therefore it’s hers.
Bujero argues that her family has lived on the contested land for more than 12 years and therefore they are bonafide occupants.
She maintains that the church just wants to grab her father’s land and insists that the truth will come out in court.
Currently Bujero’s relatives stay on the contested land in a house that Nyakatura claims was constructed by the diocese for its late former employee, Jacob Bujero.
