OPINION

By Simon Kaheru

Like many of you out there I enjoy crime thrillers as often served up on platforms like Netflix and DStv. I even pay good money — monthly — to consume the cinematic outcomes of very imaginative people and top-rate digital technology.

Many of these plots are unbelievable, but get presented so well that they become confusingly realistic.

And these days, because of the amount of time I spend plugged into technology, the confusion deepens when I come across real-life stories that seem to belong on Netflix, et al.

The most recent one involved a group of Ugandan government officials who tried to hoodwink some Serbian investors out of $50m.

Even just the amount of money mentioned in the headline, were it a crime thriller, would make me question my expectations of fictional entertainment. $50m is a hefty sum even in the movies set in massive economies like the US.

The last bank heist thriller I watched, for instance, involved the culprits doing mathematics over the weight of the money they were planning to steal out of a bank vault.

They had to simulate the weights and realised they needed more people to carry backpacks filled with the US dollar notes involved.

When I read a news story titled “Senior energy ministry official arrested for $50m fraud against Serbian investor”, I realised the Netflix people need to be serious with their plots.

Briefly — no movie spoilers — a couple of months ago while most of you were planning to attend concerts or applying for bank loans or supervising work in your little gardens growing cabbages, some government employees were once again going for the big deal:

The thrilling drama that took place within the boardrooms and offices of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development right there on Kampala Road, inside Amber House.

You probably haven’t been inside that building since it was erected in 1954.

It is now the headquarters of Uganda’s most spoken about natural resource and the biggest promise of wealth and prosperity for all over the next century, if dramas like this one can be curtailed.

The report says one Spero Byokunda, head of Petroleum Quality and Assurance in the ministry, arranged a meeting with a Serbian “investor” who was “interested in energy-related projects”.

Byokunda organised for a colleague, one George Byomugabe, to chair a meeting with the “investors” in the ministry boardroom and Byomugabe is said to have introduced himself and managed the meeting as “the Minister”.

It is a long story that involves other ministry offi cials all involved in booking meeting rooms, preparing paperwork, organising for meeting snacks and all the other things that take place when government meetings are held.

The “investor” paid an instalment of some undisclosed amount and was about to pay the next one — of $20m in cash — when he became suspicious. The rest is history continuing to unfold within the judiciary system as we hope it should, and maybe the Netflix version when it is produced.

Now, for the “investor” to only become suspicious about Byokunda and Byomugabe after being asked for the $20m (in cash, mind you) marks him as a problem in this as well.

I have not yet interacted closely with $20m or a tenth of that amount, but I have seen investors in real life, in documentaries, and read about them in various books and articles.

My patience is such that I believe one day someone will do a serious academic study on these investors in Uganda, who tend to meet government officials and then hand over money in any amount due to a boardroom meeting.

It would make for good reading and help dissipate the vast amount of stupidity that makes people pay these monies or makes other people believe that the ones paying these monies are innocent victims of anything.

What is more important for me today is a solution for all future “investors” to avoid entering into a trap of such basic stupidity.

Byokunda and Byomugabe’s shenanigans happen all too frequently in this country simply because of “a lack of transparency” that involves more than one single government department or office.

In fact, one of the stories about this particular case even mentions the chequered past of one of the despicable fellows involved — all under the employment of the same government!

I always tell people that in Uganda, we are so intertwined that we enjoy two degrees of separation rather than the ordinary six degrees. So a media house can dig up a government fraudster’s questionable history and summarise it within one paragraph yet, ironically, the entire government machinery could not do this and allowed “an investor” to interact with a clerk pretending to be a cabinet minister.

This is where the anti-corruption people need to have a serious meeting with the government communications teams.

It is so obvious what the role is here of sensible, effective communication that the lack of it should also be suspicious.

Look — even before making a casual weekend purchase off Jumia or jiji.ug we all check online for price comparisons and shop around for references, right?

So how is it possible for “an investor” to fly into the country without knowing the name and facial identity of the cabinet minister they are going to meet and hand $20m?

The ministry website exists, but you have to go over for yourself to check how useful it is in this regard — hence the need for that meeting involving all government communicators, the National IT Authority, State House Anti-Corruption and Investor Protection Units, the Police and the Inspectorate General of Government.

$20M in bags

All ministry and government websites should be revamped and made actual sources of information for everybody interested in Uganda to use for their planning — especially “investors” carrying $20m in bags.

In fact, places like the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development could have their boardroom and meeting bookings loaded onto the intranet so that no-one sets up criminally motivated gatherings again.

If all government communicators can agree with the anti-corruption machinery that they have a major contribution to make, we will see fewer Byokunda-Byomugabe-Serbian investor sagas in real time and confine them to Netflix et al.

www.skaheru.com @skaher