Prosecute CHOGM car dealers
Aug 21, 2008
The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) has said the purchase of cars for last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was fraught with irregularities and the country did not get value for money.
The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) has said the purchase of cars for last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was fraught with irregularities and the country did not get value for money.
The PPDA says despite the fact that the cars did not meet specifications, the works ministry gave them a clean bill of health and paid for them.
The CHOGM car deal was one of the most controversial deals leading up to the meeting. The first signs that something was not right with the deal began as early as November 2006. The works ministry cancelled an existing tendering process and thereafter showed no urgency to fill the order. This is despite the fact that one cannot purchase more than 100 cars at a go from any showroom in the world. They need to be factory-ordered with all the time delays that it entails.
Then to cap the bizarre episode, the dozens of BMWs were airlifted into the country just in time for CHOGM as if from heaven.
The entire CHOGM procurement process, not only with the cars, left a bad taste in many people’s mouths and highlighted the height to which impunity has risen among public officials.
The record will show that Uganda hosted CHOGM in 2007 and not much else. The opportunity to showcase Uganda as a country that has put its unstable past behind it and is emerging as a beacon of hope in a troubled region was squandered, because of the smash-and-grab nature of the organising process.
Let us not mince words about corruption. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
The Government should take the PPDA report as a starting point and prosecute all those who conspired to fail Uganda derive the full benefits that it was entitled to by hosting CHOGM.
The PPDA says despite the fact that the cars did not meet specifications, the works ministry gave them a clean bill of health and paid for them.
The CHOGM car deal was one of the most controversial deals leading up to the meeting. The first signs that something was not right with the deal began as early as November 2006. The works ministry cancelled an existing tendering process and thereafter showed no urgency to fill the order. This is despite the fact that one cannot purchase more than 100 cars at a go from any showroom in the world. They need to be factory-ordered with all the time delays that it entails.
Then to cap the bizarre episode, the dozens of BMWs were airlifted into the country just in time for CHOGM as if from heaven.
The entire CHOGM procurement process, not only with the cars, left a bad taste in many people’s mouths and highlighted the height to which impunity has risen among public officials.
The record will show that Uganda hosted CHOGM in 2007 and not much else. The opportunity to showcase Uganda as a country that has put its unstable past behind it and is emerging as a beacon of hope in a troubled region was squandered, because of the smash-and-grab nature of the organising process.
Let us not mince words about corruption. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
The Government should take the PPDA report as a starting point and prosecute all those who conspired to fail Uganda derive the full benefits that it was entitled to by hosting CHOGM.