Bemanya investigates"what really happened" at UTL

Photos by Ronnie Kijjambu

Haven't we read it all before? That rhetoric, manager mismanages public facility, causing astronomical losses. They set up a review, in some cases commissions of inquiry. Take months investigating. Names get mentioned. And, phew, nothing happens. No one gets apprehended (refer to the UNRA probe).

But speaking at the finance ministry boardroom in Kampala yesterday, Bemanya Twebaze, the man who in April was tasked to steady the heavily indebted UTL as the company's official receiver or provisional administrator, promised to dig trenches to have culprits who messed the state telecom brought to book.

It sounds really hard to believe him. But maybe the public should give him the benefit of doubt, after all this is Hakuna Mchezo tenure and the administrator from the Uganda Registration Services Bureau might just be the ‘investigator' to finally deliver what Uganda has been waiting for — where persons indicted in public scams are actually punished.

The UTL provisional administrator was speaking at a media briefing, which included state minister for investment and privatization Evelyn Anite giving out UTL-powered cell phones to selected Ugandans to promote the state telecom. 

He said … "(as provisional administrator) my responsibility among others is to investigate the company's businesses, its financial strength, and see what could have happened."  

"All these issues are going to be looked into and whoever is responsible shall be accountable. Whoever did wrong and caused UTL to run down shall be answerable," Bemanya said.

The state telecom was placed under provisional administration effective April 28, this year after it was categorized to be near insolvency.

Prior to that, the company had been dragged in the mud by several staffers complaining over its failure to remit their savings. Between 2008 and 2009, MTN Uganda and Airtel threatened to lock out the telecom's calls over failure to pay a combined sum of more than sh20b accumulated in interconnection charges.

But the telecom denied the sums, saying it was only aware of sh6b for MTN and sh2.6b for Airtel and blamed the non-payment of staff on continued failure by various government agencies to clear bills amounting to more than sh7b. 

Evelyn Anite said the reason UTL neared extinction hinged on mismanagement. "What do you call situations where managers earn sh100m but utility bills aren't paid…" she said.

But the major handicap was the fall of Tripoli in 2011, where Libyan entity Ucom which owned 69 percent of UTL could no longer successfully invest in the telecom. 

However, Bemanya said his number one priority was to "protect" the company and ensure it "trades" and that since April (this year) its ratings were again going up, same as number of subscribers. 

"The survival, stability and continuity of UTL with a view of returning it to profitability in the long term is fundamental," he said. 

He said government entities who owed the telecom close to sh15b in unpaid bills had committed to paying the arrears in the first week on the coming financial year — the monies will help soothe the company's woes.   

Evelyn Anite said government couldn't let UTL go down because "it's our company, a Ugandan telecom that employs Ugandans", urging the populace to embrace it, in line with Buy Uganda Build Uganda.

She said she was also going to look into other parastatals, including the National Housing and Rift Valley Railways which government privatised but still owned some shares, to see how they were performing.