By Mary Karugaba and Milton olupot

The Police are hunting for the water ministry procurement officer over missing documents related to CHOGM expenses at Mulago Hospital where he worked before.

Julius Kitinisa is alleged to have gone into hiding after the public accounts committee, probing the Commonwealth expenditures, asked to see the original bid documents for the sh2b Rhino Investments contract for the renovation of Mulago Hospital. The company is linked to retired Colonel John Mugyenyi.

According to the committee chairman, Nandala Mafabi, the officer was instructed to provide the documents to the committee yesterday but he instead “disappeared”.

Mafabi said Mulago Hospital management had indicated that Kitinisa would bring the documents yesterday at 10:00am.

“The man has now disappeared. He has even switched off his phone. But I have sent the Police to look for him at the Ministry of Water and even at his home,” Mafabi said.

The CID boss at Parliament, David Ngobi, said: “We are looking for him and we have opened a file on the contract procurement by Rhino Investments.”

Appearing before the probe committee on Monday, Mulago Hospital boss Edward Ddumba declined to explain how the contract was awarded, saying the committee should summon Kitinisa for details.

“This was a technical issue. I take advice from the procurement officer who I think should come and explain,” he told the members.

During the meeting, the committee found that the contract was irregularly awarded to Rhino Investments.

It was discovered that the contract evaluation was done before the bids opening. When Dr. Ddumba was asked to explain the inconsistency, he said it was “just a typographic error.”

The MPs also discovered that whereas the law demands that the closing of the bids submission and the opening of the bids should be done on the same day, the bids opening was done five days later.

They were also shocked to find that the bid form for Rhino and Dott Services were handwritten and bore similar handwriting.

“With all this, I believe that there was no value for money. Ugandans lost sh2b. The whole process of procurement was flouted,” Mafabi said.