First read:
The ‘uncorrupt’ president who supports his corrupt friends : Museveni gives Mukula Shs 100m for legal fees
Mukula set free by Anti Corruption Court
By Anthony Wesaka
Posted Wednesday, March 13 2013 at 10:30
Posted Wednesday, March 13 2013 at 10:30
Consequently, the Soroti Municipality MP who has spent over one month in Luzira prison, is a free man.
Justice David Wangutusi of the Anti-Corruption Court Wednesday ruled that trial Chief magistrate Irene Akankwasa, who sent Capt. Mukula to prison did not scrutinise the evidence well.
Setting the sentence aside, Justice Wangutusi said the charge was not proved to the degree of certainty.
Capt. Mukula challenged his conviction and sentence a month ago.
On January 18, court found Capt. Mukula guilty of embezzling Shs210 million from the Gavi account.
During the appeal hearing last month, Capt. Mukula’s lawyers argued that he was wrongly convicted because ministers are not government employees.
The lawyers reasoned that Ms Akankwasa erred when she believed prosecution without hearing the accused’s side of the story.
Be careful, Tamale Mirundi tells Mike Mukula
Mirundi to Mukula: be careful or else…
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24306:-mirundi-to-mukula-be-careful-or-else&catid=34:news&Itemid=114
Tuesday, 19 March 2013 22:37
The presidential press secretary has warned
Soroti municipality MP Mike Mukula, fresh from a two-month stint in Luzira
prison, to carefully think through what he says going forward or else he might
end up in more trouble.
Tamale Mirundi said on Monday, during his weekly
radio talk show that Mukula needs to lie low because he “doesn’t have a
historical bond with President Museveni and his bush war colleagues.”
“When you are dealing with these people from the
bush, you must know that they have a bond, a five-year bush bond. These bush
war veterans don’t gamble. They see him [Mukula] as a scavenger,” he said.
Mirundi argues that Mukula, a former junior
health minister, was made to think that he can gang up with Rujumbura MP and
former Minister for Health Jim Muhwezi and fight the First Lady Janet Museveni
and the President. According to Mirundi, what Mukula didn’t know is that
Muhwezi can’t fight Museveni, a fellow bush war comrade, who bonded with him
for five years.
The controversial press secretary also says that
this is the reason why Muhwezi and Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi can’t fight
forever.
“These bush war veterans are like brothers, when
they knock each other, they can’t break the ties completely,” he said.
Criticising Mukula’s recent remarks at a rally in
Soroti, Mirundi said what people don’t know is that “Mukula’s group is worse
than Ebola [haemorrhagic fever].”
Following his release from jail, Mukula told his
supporters at a rally that he is now very strong politically and that his
incarceration has showed that he is a big force to reckon with in the country.
But Mirundi cites the case of former Vice President Gilbert Bukenya to warn
Mukula not to dare insinuate that he can square up with Museveni because “you
can’t antagonize a sitting president three years after elections—he will finish
you.”
“These [Mukula and group] are opportunists,” he
said.
Mukula was on January 18 convicted and sentenced
to four years in jail for embezzling Shs 210m from the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) but Justice David Wangutusi acquitted him on
March 13. An estimated Shs 1.6bn was lost in the Gavi scam. Despite the
sentence, Mukula maintained his innocence and appealed against both the
conviction and the sentence.
Museveni, who was under pressure to come to the
rescue of his former minister, paid Shs 100m in legal fees to Mukula’s lawyers
following intense lobbying from his supporters. Mukula’s supporters accused the
government of targeting their man after he expressed interest in standing for
the presidency. Keen not to be seen as insensitive, and yet maintaining that he
can’t influence the judiciary, Museveni promised to pay Mukula’s legal fees.
After a magistrate in the Anti-corruption
division of the High court found Mukula guilty, some supporters spoke of a
political witch-hunt and selective prosecution, especially given that his
former colleagues in the ministry of Health, Muhwezi and Alex Kamugisha, with
whom he was accused of embezzlement, were acquitted of the charges.
When the scandal first came to light, Mukula said
he had given the money to the First Lady for a project on HIV/Aids. However, it
turned out, only Shs 53m of the Shs 263m went to Mrs Janet Museveni, according
to court proceedings, and it was reportedly accounted for. Mukula said he
refunded the remaining Shs 210m. The Gavi donated $4.3m to Uganda in 2004
as a reward for surpassing the national immunisation targets in 2002.
Mike Mukula set free
Publish Date: Mar 13, 2013
Justice David Wangutusi ruled Wednesday morning that Mukula is innocent, adding that the lower court ignored vital evidence in the case.
Before his acquittal, Mukula filed an appeal challenging his conviction and a four-year sentence by the Chief Magistrate Irene Akankwasa.
He argued that the trial magistrate was biased in her judgment when she convicted him without properly evaluating the evidence on record.
His lawyers argued that for charges of embezzlement to stand, a person must be an employee of government, servant, or public officer which Mukula was not.
In a closing submission the director of legal affairs Sydney Asubo from the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) asked the court to uphold the conviction and sentence.
Asubo said Mukula signed for the money, received it and only passed on sh54m to the office of the First Lady and did not account for sh210m.
Mukula was in January found guilty of embezzling sh210m from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
A team of defense lawyers led by David Mpanga argued that ministers are political appointees and it was wrong for the magistrate to convict their client of embezzlement.
The lawyers argued that for charges of embezzlement to stand a person must be an employee of government, servant, or public officer, which Mukula was not.
Broke MPs plead with Museveni
Wednesday, 13 March 2013 00:36
President says only 50 MPs can sustain
themselves
A closed-door meeting between President Museveni
and Parliament’s Local Government and Public Service committee turned into a
begging spree, as MPs lobbied a man they are supposed to hold to account.
As individual MPs pleaded and begged for help,
completely oblivious of the meeting’s agenda, it became even more apparent to
Museveni that this crop of MPs had chosen a life of debt over frugality and
were grappling with financial threats that might destroy their careers.
The meeting at State House Entebbe was meant to
discuss the creation of new districts, which, experts say, essentially swells
public expenditure. But, according to sources present, it turned into something
else.
Mwenge North MP David Muhumuza set the tone,
informing a jovial Museveni: “Loans are killing us please help us Mr
President.”
Museveni, who usually likes exploiting financial
vulnerabilities of politicians, told his guests that he was well aware of their
predicament.
“My intelligence tells me that it is only 50 MPs
who can sustain themselves, the rest are infested with huge debts,” Our sources
quoted Museveni as having said.
There are 374 MPs in Parliament, which means 324
are broke, if the president’s intelligence reports are to be believed. Museveni
warned that poor MPs could be “a security risk as they can be bribed by oil
companies now that we have oil.” In future, he said, MPs should not go
for big loans. He said government can use the lawmakers as agents of wealth
creation.
Since financial handouts to constituents are one
of the reasons MPs go for loans, they (MPs) can be given money to buy, for
example, coffee seedlings and distribute to voters, Museveni said. Florence
Kintu (Kalungu Woman MP) and chairperson of the committee asked the president
to give her 200,000 coffee seedlings to distribute to her constituents.
“When you visited Kalungu you donated one million
seedlings and handed them over to Vicent Bamulangaki Ssempijja (Kalungu East).
He is now going round distributing them as though he is the donor. You should
have given me at least 200,000 seedlings as well,” Kintu pleaded.
“But both of you are Movement people,” Museveni
told Kintu.
Scrapping NAADS
Mawokota South MP Joseph Kenneth Bbosa Kiyingi
intervened on a point of information. He proposed that as a policy, Museveni
should give each MP some seedlings to distribute.
Museveni was happy with Kiyingi Bbosa’s suggestion. He informed MPs that he was fed up with Naads and had decided to scrap it. He urged MPs to sponsor a motion that would effectively see MPs replace Naads. Naads money, he said, would be distributed to MPs to buy seedlings and other goodies for the voters.
But the promise to hand them Naads money didn’t
end requests for help. Budiope West MP John Bosco Mubito, after praising
Museveni for the good father he is, asked for “mabugo” (condolence money).
Mubito informed Museveni that former Busoga
Kingdom Speaker Martin Musumba had passed on and Chief Whip Kasule Lumumba had
directed him (Mubito) to beg Museveni for his burial contribution. “Sir I am
ready to take the money,” Mubito pleaded.
Bughendera MP Joseph Sibalinghana Kiregheya
Matte informed Museveni that he had given him some money when they formed the
FRONASA rebel outfit to fight Idi Amin (in the 1970s). “I was staying in Zambia at that
time. I hope you remember that I gave you some money for the struggle,” began
Matte.
The MP told Museveni that squatters had occupied
his land in Kasese and if compensated, it would improve his financial status.
“Eriya Kategaya [former first deputy prime
minister] has died and you know I am older than him by one year. I am about to
die before I get my money (compensation).”
This MP also pleaded that the newly created
Bughendera constituency (in Bundibugyo district) should be turned into a
district. Sources told us that a teary Matte at this point reached out for his
handkerchief and wiped tears. Museveni in response insisted that districts
would only be created after a policy has been passed. As for the money, he
pledged “something will be done.”
News of the MPs dire financial situation has made
headlines severally in the media. Last February at the opposition MPs’ retreat
in Jinja, Elijah Okupa, a parliamentary commissioner shocked his colleagues
when he said that about 70 MPs were getting zero pay at the end of the month.
He said they were spending their money on big cars, palatial houses and
luxuries, as well as supporting poor constituents.
Recently, a local tabloid named lawmakers who
take home as low as Shs 20,000 due to debts. Kinkizi East MP Chris Baryomunsi,
who is a member of the Parliamentary Commission, which largely handles the MPs
welfare, said lawmakers are financially stretched because they “are poorly
facilitated and the constituency demands are too much on them.”
“People expect an MP to meet the expenses of all
services yet some of these services are supposed to be done by government; for
example, construction of feeder roads, bridges, and the provision of medicine.
These are some of the areas where MPs incur a lot of expenditures,” he said.
Baryomunsi urged MPs to learn to be financially responsible.
Enter opposition
After the NRM MPs were done, it was now time for
the opposition to get something from the president, and UPC’s Santa Alum Ogwang
(Woman MP Oyam) led the pack.
Alum told Museveni her problems were a road and two others, “I will tell you [the two others]when it is only both of us.” If you work on these three, Alum pledged, “I will even support you in 2016.” Museveni listened and instructed his staff to arrange a meeting.
Alum told Museveni her problems were a road and two others, “I will tell you [the two others]when it is only both of us.” If you work on these three, Alum pledged, “I will even support you in 2016.” Museveni listened and instructed his staff to arrange a meeting.
Then came Christine Abia (Arua Woman MP). Her
problems, she said, were women projects and orphans. In response,
Museveni is quoted as having said: “Now that you are a good girl, we can look
into your problems.”
Rukungiri municipality MP Roland Kaginda informed
Museveni that he had just returned from Zambia where the government rents
both a constituency and a national office for every MP and even pays for staff
and drivers. “We need something like that here. It will even reduce on MPs’
indebtedness.”
Kaginda then asked why salaries of civil servants
mainly teachers and workers had delayed. He also wondered why some teachers had
been struck off the payroll. Ignatius Besisira (Buyaga East) was more concerned
with the creation of Kagadi and Bukumiro districts. “Mr President you promised
these districts during campaigns. We will lose elections if they are not
created.”
Museveni, who had spoken of withdrawing the
motion to create 25 districts, promised that the new districts in Bunyoro will
be operationalised but the others could wait. Florence Mutyabule Tibafana
(Woman MP Namutumba) reminded Museveni that “it is you who excited people
during campaigns when you said our silos are full. You cannot then tell them
that we have no money to create districts. We should create them,” she pleaded.
But Kaginda shot her down asking, “if the
president says there is no money, how will you finance them?” “Answer Kaginda,”
Museveni stubbornly told Mutyabule.
The only MPs who didn’t make personal demands
were Raphael Magyezi (Igara West) and Carolyn Nanyondo Birungi (Woman MP
Kalangala). The Kalangala MP asked Museveni to make good on his promise to give
Shs 20bn to enhance LCV councillors. The councillors, Birungi said, are not
well paid and many are semi-illiterate yet they have to supervise billions of
money sent to districts.
The lenders behind the MPs’ woes
There are a number of creditors that are behind
the financial problems of MPs. The major tormentors are banks, which employ
aggressive and persuasive young women as loans’ officers. These ladies use
persuasion to convince MPs to secure these loans, pledging low interest rates.
We have been told that some MPs used this opportunity to borrow as much as Shs
150 to Shs 200m from major banks.
Interestingly, the list also includes private
lenders, who have made life very difficult for legislators. UPDF MP Gen Elly
Tumwine and Wakiso Woman MP Rosemary Sseninde own the Great Cash Solution, an
organization that lends money to fellow MPs. Other lawmakers, who personally
lend money include Betty Amongi Ongom (Oyam South) and Geoffrey Ekanya (Tororo
county).
Amongi declined to comment on the matter, while
Ekanya said he was actually in the bank helping lawmakers sort out some
loan-related matters. The other lender is the Parliamentarians Savings and
Credit Society Organisation (SACCO) chaired by Kakuuto MP Mathias Kasamba. This
scheme lends MPs money at 2%. Kasamba also declined to comment, telling us last
evening that he was “the House”.
There is also a company called Quick Loan
Solution that has been sending unsolicited SMS messages to lawmakers, urging
them to take loans. Some said they deleted the messages, although others may
have been swayed.
There is also a Ugandan of Asian origin called
Jain, who works closely with his son in this highly-profitable business of
lending MPs money. Manzi Tumubweine, a former legislator and minister, is the
other wealthy and influential moneylender at Parliament.
