Attorney generals bicker over oil case money

May 09, 2013

There was a heated exchange between the Attorney General (AG), Peter Nyombi and his counterpart in the shadow cabinet, Abdu Katuntu over the sh11b paid by government to lawyers in the oil case in London.

By Joyce Namutebi          
                               
There was a heated exchange between the Attorney General (AG), Peter Nyombi and his counterpart in the shadow cabinet, Abdu Katuntu over the sh11b paid by government to lawyers in the oil case in London.


 This was during a meeting of the legal and parliamentary affairs committee with the Third Deputy Prime Minister, Moses Ali, finance minister, Maria Kiwanuka, the AG and officials from the Justice Law and Order sector yesterday Wednesday (May 8).

 Concluding her submission in response to queries raised by the committee Kiwanuka took the opportunity to commend Nyombi, technical staff of the ministry of justice and the legal fraternity in Government for the recent success in the case in London on oil despite the limited resources.

“This has set a legal precedent that Uganda has the legal capacity and competence to defend herself within and outside Uganda,” she said.

However, Katuntu in reaction to her remarks shot back saying, “How can we say you are building capacity when you are hiring foreign firms?”

 When the meeting was coming to a close, Nyombi told the committee that Katuntu was giving a false impression that Uganda’s team did not participate. This prompted Ali to jokingly tell Nyombi that next time he should recruit Katuntu on the team.

Katuntu in turn told Nyombi that the case has not yet been concluded and that he was yet to succeed.

Nyombi shot back saying, “I know the team I went with. If they hear such comments they will be demoralized.”

 Katuntu then questioned the sh11b paid to the team, but Nyombi said it saved sh1 trillion.

  After the meeting Nyombi continued with the attack on Katuntu saying that “if a good job is done appreciate it.”

 The officials had been called to respond to issues raised by the committee mainly in relation to continued underfunding of the Ministry of Justice, the Judiciary and JLOS institutions.

  Some of the issues the MPs wanted answers to include the Sh254 arrears in court awards, variations in salaries in the various government institutions and why the electoral Commission and Uganda Law Reform commission had not had salary reviews since they were established.

The MPs, among others, wanted to know when judges and judicial officers would get increased pay as promised by the President when the JLOS house would be constructed and the meager Sh247m allocated for prosecution of cases.

On LC elections, Moses Ali said there is no money, but revealed that there is a proposal to revert back to lining up behind candidates instead of voting by secret ballot.

On the new judges he said that government has no way out but to look for money to pay them.

In her statement, Maria Kiwanuka said additional Sh10b has been provided for recruitment and emoluments of judges. “This is what we could afford out of the requirement of Sh30b submitted from the sector.”

The MPs gave one month to the ministers to come up with a plan on how they were going to address the issue of court awards.  

 

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