Museveni pins CHOGM officials

May 01, 2010

PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from the loss incurred in expenditures for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2007. The President said although he gave guidance on the general principles, he was not involved in the actual procurements.

By Mary Karugaba and C. Musoke

PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from the loss incurred in expenditures for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2007. The President said although he gave guidance on the general principles, he was not involved in the actual procurements.

Meeting members of the public accounts committee of Parliament led by the chairperson, Nandaala Mafabi, at State House in Entebbe on Thursday, the President said the committee must insist on documented correspondences, adding that he cannot run government business on telephones.

The committee’s queries mainly revolved around the sh9b CHOGM cars, the sh5b given to J&M Airport Hotel which was not on the CHOGM list and was not used during the meeting, and the sh10b spent on communication equipment.

The meeting, which ended after midnight, began with a dinner.
Members who attended the meeting described it as “calm”.

“There was no MP who tried to protect the ministers. The President listened attentively and responded,” a source said.

On the issue of cars, the President said he had presented two options. One option was to purchase vehicles and the other was hiring.

But his ideas were rejected due to the CHOGM international guidelines.

“I wanted to cut costs and asked what all this money was for. I asked why we would not do things cheaply. I was told because of the Blue Book, everything must be uniform,” Museveni said.

The President, however, questioned why there was no tendering and why the procurement was termed as an emergency when the process started.

He also questioned why the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority guidelines were not followed.

President Museveni said, he would discuss with the Vice-President, Gilbert Bukenya who was the chairman of the cabinet committee at the time, but said the PAC should go to his office and meet him and ask about these issues.

“He is the Vice-President of Uganda, there is no harm in going to see him and asking him these things.

The Attorney General was right. I don’t think it is right for the committee of Parliament to summon the VP. Instead, go and see him. What you are interested in is facts.

He was making decisions to which he is accountable. You must see him and he must see you,” the President said.
Museveni clarified that summoning the Vice-President to the committee would be breaking protocol.

He added that there would be no conflict for PAC to make an effort to meet him. Although Bukenya is a witness, the President explained, he is also the Vice-President.

“If you meet him, he should be able to shed some light on some of these things. When you talk to him, he might clear some facts,” he said.

The President also directed all the other ministers who have been summoned before the probe to appear. “If they are ministers they must appear before the committee. I will tell them this,” he said.

On the issue of the communication equipment that cost US$5m, the President said his involvement was to ensure that the equipment they had was enough.

This was after it emerged that the initial cost of purchase was raised from $3.2m to $5m and yet the cost in the agreement was $4.5million.

It was later revealed that the missing $500,000 was paid as commission to the Chinese firm, Huawei, that was implementing the project.

The firm had sub-contracted Balton to supply the equipment at a cost of $4.5m and the rest was paid to Huawei as commission. “Why would Huawei get a commission? Were they paying themselves a commission? This one, they will have to sort it out,” the President said.

On J&M Hotel, Bwebajja, the President said he knew about the support to the hotel in principle, but not the details.

“When the issue of the Blue Book came up, people said that Kampala hotels had a bed capacity of 1,500 and yet for CHOGM to be held in any country, there must be a bed capacity of 4,500.

met the hoteliers and urged them to build more hotel rooms. But they said they had not planned for this kind of investment. I told them we would try and support them,” he said.

The President said because the J&M hotel was centrally located and because of the need to exploit the opportunity of letting CHOGM guests tour the city and suburbs, he gave the hotel with $1.3m to furnish and complete it.

During the meeting, the President presented the letter he wrote explaining why he was supporting the hotel and the specific figure he donated.

He had also proposed that Government would use its position to acquire shares in the hotel at a later date.

However, it emerged yesterday that before his written instructions were received, the ministries of finance and that of foreign affairs had already signed an agreement worth $1.5m with the proprietor of the hotel, Joseph Behakanira ( deceased).

According to available documents, Behakanira received only $1.3m. When he appeared before the committee, Behakanira asked about the $200,000. “You have to follow up that.

Finance will have to answer that. Why didn’t they change the agreement to reflect the $1.3m which I authorised?” the President asked.

The President, however, said despite all the weaknesses unearthed by PAC in the CHOGM probe, he was satisfied that CHOGM was a success and urged members to highlight some of these successes.

He said the hotel bed capacity shot up from 1500 to over 7,000 with tourism arrivals going up almost two fold from 640,000 tourists a year to over 980,000.

“In spite of all these problems, we managed to boost our economy with tourism alone earning over $480m a year up from $300m.

“That was my aim. We only talk about the negative elements and cloud the positive issues. We are here to manage the economy,” he asserted.

PAC chairperson Nandala Mafabi disclosed the gaps and challenges that were faced in the course of the probe and commended the President for initiating the probe.

He said despite their different political affiliations, members of PAC worked as a team, adding that issues of accountability for public funds affects all of them.

The committee members included: Frank Tumwebaze, Theodore Ssekikubo, Tom Kazibwe and Henry Banyenzaki.

Sources said Ssekikubo, asked the President to punish the political leaders who were involved in the scandals and not the accounting officers who were acting on their directives. Museveni reportedly said: “those are your internal opinions.”

Oduman Okello asked the President whether he would implement the recommendations of the report. “We have got the thieves, will you punish them?” Okello reportedly asked.

The President pledged to intensify the fight against corruption which he said was becoming a problem. “We shall fight that battle.

There are weaknesses in fighting corruption and criminality, NRM is pioneering the fight against all these ills. The problem I have with you people is when you use these as political weapons like you did in the case of Temangalo.

Banyenzaki reportedly requested the President to fight corruption so that the opposition is not given any chance to criticise the Government.

Auditor General John Muwanga said; “It is now the work of Parliament to decide. My work stopped at compiling the report.”

The meeting was also attended by the executive director of CHOGM, Hilda Musubira; PS Foreign Affairs, James Mugume, State House Comptroller Richard Muhinda and Gen. Kale Kayihura.

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