Court has exonerated the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and businessman Amos Nzeyi over wrangles in regard to the purchase and proprietorship of a 366-acre land at Temangalo in Wakiso District.
Kampala High Court before Justice John Eudes Keitirima dismissed with costs the case in which Indian family-owned firm, Temangalo Tea Estate led by Muhammad Hassanali Moosa had sued Nzeyi and NSSF seeking to recover the land it possessed before the expulsion of the Asians by the Iddi Amin Regime in 1972.
In 2016, M/s Temangalo Tea Estate had sued NSSF and Mr Nzeyi jointly with Edrisi Kintu, Mwami Nalukenge Mawanda, Abbas Mawanda and the Commissioner for Land Registration claiming that it was granted repossession certificate by the Minister of Finance in August 1993 and was seeking to recover the said land.
Through its lawyers, the company claimed that prior to expulsion in 1972 during the Amin regime, the family had a 79-year lease effective September 1924 and was due to expire in August 2003.
However, through their lawyers, Temangalo Tea Estate filed an application seeking to have the case struck out alluding to limitations and failure to disclose a cause of action against NSSF.
In the ruling delivered on November 27, Justice Keitirima agreed with the Nzeyi and NSSF that Temangalo Tea Estate did not explain why they delayed to file the case as required by law.
According to the court record, in 1993, Temangalo Tea Estate filed a case against Mr Nzeyi and it was adjourned sine die for negotiations which failed but it did not pursue the case.
“One would conclude that the respondent (Temangalo Tea Estate) simply abandoned the said application because nothing would have stopped them to pursue it. Negotiations could not have taken over 23 years as the respondent would wish to intimate and if they indeed took that period, it was to their detriment,” Justice Keitirima said.
This decision to settle the claims over ownership of the Temangalo land has come after more than a decade following an investigation by Parliament over the controversial sale of the Temangalo land to NSSF at a cost of Shs11 billion.
According to the court documents, Nzeyi sold the land at Temangalo to NSSF in 2009 after he acquired in 1988 with a view of establishing a dairy farm but acquired it in phases from former managing director of Uganda Development Bank, Mr Abbas Mawanda who he knew in 1975.
