Police must probe the UWA scam

Dec 23, 2009

Editor—On December 20, The Sunday Vision published a story entitled, “UWA employees lose over sh100m in car deal”. This sounds too strange to be true. In this era of globalisation, businesses are executed on computers and on phone without one having

Editor—On December 20, The Sunday Vision published a story entitled, “UWA employees lose over sh100m in car deal”. This sounds too strange to be true. In this era of globalisation, businesses are executed on computers and on phone without one having any physical contact with another.

It is important to establish the circumstances under which the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) Human Resource Manager, Chrisostom Mwesiimo, introduced the car dealer to the UWA management and his past relationship with Timothy Wanume, the car dealer. If it is found out that Mwesiimo had prior dealings with Wanume, then the investigators should begin from that past relationship. Since the staff are demanding thorough investigations, it is important to look at their request to the board to have a waiver and how the board handled it. Why did the executive director, Moses Mapesa, threaten them with his letter of May 6 when they wrote to the board for assistance, or why did Mwesiimo and Mapesa dissuade the staff from referring the case to the Police for possible arrest and prosecution of Wanume? Why did the UWA management give a condition that individual staff would not be allowed to handle cash in order to conclude their own transactions? This is demotivating to the staff who lost money in the deal and sends a bad signal to other staff who see their colleagues not being bailed out in a sour deal that involved top UWA officers.

Where is the minister of tourism wildlife and antiquities in this whole saga? Did each individual staff sign an authorisation letter permitting the executive director to pay Automat Japan for the cars? Is the minister aware that the affected staff are servicing ‘hot air’ in the name of loan recovery when UWA management and board did not authorise to channel their money to the dubious car dealer? What did the board do when the affected staff sought its intervention before the executive director “closed the avenue”?

Did Moses Mapesa carry out due diligence inquiry to authenticate the existence of Automat Japan before committing UWA’s money to be paid out as loans to the staff? The above issues suggest that there are management problems which the UWA board and/or minister responsible should closely inquire into. How could a letter written to the Board of Trustees be responded to by the Executive Director?

The loss is to UWA and if any staff has lost any money, the board or the minister should assist them to recover such monies. The Police should keenly conduct investigations into the alleged loss, why Mwesiimo and Mapesa discouraged the affected staff from reporting the suspects and whether Mwesiimo obtained a loan from the bank, which bank and on what terms to buy the car he has today.

Thomas Okello
Kasese

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});