Let me start by quoting Mr Kyijomanyi in his message below when he wrote:
“…if NRMO really wanted to create efficient land use in Uganda, I know L_Cpl Otto does not want to hear it anymore, it should have used taxation.”
Where does he base to make such a claim? I am a staunch believer in the tax state, and a symbiotic relationship between the political class and the populace based on a fiscal contract.
Let me refer you to my paper on land that I have sent to all UAH forumists to read but Mr.Kyijomanyi has refused to read it or/and comment on it. In that paper which Mr. Abbey Semuwemba has read, I say:
“Instead of giving microcredit to a peasant who will buy a bicycle, marry another lady to oppress and use the rest to buy tekwe brew or is it kwete, and then fail to pay back, we should lump everything up and give macrocredit to a General Oketta or a Brigadier Otema or any other aspiring land baron currently gracing the headlines, to handsomely pay off the squatters that are pestering him. Once the land has been consolidated, give the owners the confidence that it is their private property, with all accompanying legal backup.
Just as swiftly, enact a law that sets the minimum acreage of land that can be registered under a landowner in zones of agricultural production, and for that matter, everywhere else. Soon afterwards, by force of law, cause the land baron to pay property tax on that land: so many millions of shillings per so many hectares of land per annum. That will discourage him from using the land as an object of speculation and force him to put it to productive use. If he employs a threshold of 500 labourers on his 40 square miles farm, and provides them with affordable accommodation and other amenities, waive the property tax in his favour.”
Although Mr. Kyijomanyi constatntly imply that I am a supporter of the 2007 land bill, I am on record as a stauch opponent of everything it stands for:
I will quote myself again:
“We cannot inaugurate the ‘Plan for Modernization of Agriculture’ (PMA) and then promulgate a law that entrenches peasants and squatters. That is like buying a baby cot and then going for vasectomy.”
