Onen appearing before the public accounts committee yesterday

By Cyprian Musoke
and Joyce Namutebi

MPs on the public accounts committee yesterday quizzed officials in the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry over a contract awarded to a recruitment firm to train hotel staff in the run-up to the Commonwealth summit at a cost of sh1.4b.

Appearing before the committee, the team led by the permanent secretary, Julius Onen, struggled to justify why the initial contract sum of sh614m was later adjusted to sh1.4b by the firm, UNISIS.

The firm won the contract through a joint bid with Utali College of Kenya. The MPs queried why a bid by Crested Crane Hotel, the national hotel training institution in Jinja, and one by Makerere University Business School hospitality department were disregarded.

Selecting these two, the MPs argued, would have ensured that the capacity of national institutions is enhanced and that the money is not used to benefit a Kenyan firm.

“The first training took four days, and the second took three days. Why did you pay them all this money? Wasn’t that high according to you?” asked Claver Mutuluuza (NRM).
But Baguma Balinda, the commissioner who was in charge of the project, said the training took six weeks.

“But they were training people with diplomas and others degrees how to welcome guests, serve them and make their beds. Why hire an institution with no expertise at sh1.4b?” asked committee chairman Nandala Mafabi (FDC).

The MPs also questioned the activities of the accommodation sub-committee, which, according to the PS of foreign affairs, James Mugume, had been in charge of selecting the hotels for advance payments. They were wondering why they selected hotels under construction, like Imperial Royale and J&M on Entebbe road, to benefit from the CHOGM advances.

But the officials denied they were in charge of recommending which hotels should benefit from advances, arguing that they were only responsible for quality assurance.

At this point, Theodore Ssekikubo (NRM) and Henry Banyenzaki (NRM) suggested that the officials take oath and deposit their passports with the criminal investigations department to avoid shifting blame.

“The Government spent over sh20b on hotels, of which you got sh1b, meaning it was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs paying, but they said they would do so on your recommendation,” Tom Kazibwe (NRM) put it to the officials, who kept denying responsibility.

It was resolved that a date will be set on which the two ministries will appear together to find out who authorised the release of money to hotels still under construction.

Banyenzaki said the permanent secretaries who were in charge at the time were transferred to avoid blame. He suggested that the committee summons those. Dr. Sam Nahamya was the Permanent Secretary of the tourism ministry before CHOGM.

The MPs also queried sh121m for hotel classification, sh30m for online reservations, sh61m for hotel inspection and sh45m for media sensitisation.
“How could you use a whooping sh121m for moving from one hotel to another, all within the radius of Kampala, classifying them?” wondered Claver Mutuluuza (NRM).

The PS explained that the need for classification was an East African initiative and was in the national interest.
“There is no patriotism in this ministry because they would have trained from one of our institutions but they used UNISIS which had no hotel training expertise,” ruled Nandala.

“There is a staff in this ministry who knows a lot about UNISIS and must have selected them in collusion. We refer the matter to the criminal investigation department to investigate the motive.”

The tourism ministry officials failed to produce their budget for the CHOGM activities although they recalled that the ministry received slightly over sh5b.