By Our Reporters
For sometime NITA-U and the State House-backed UTL have been locked in a battle over who should cash in on the budgets for the different government MDAs when it comes to internet provision. UTL, a company under administration but one in which government has a stake, has always accused NITA-U of overcharging internet. And the rope-pulling between the two entities has seen the internet cost to MDAs drop from USD300/MGBS to merely USD70 in just months. Under the leadership of Twebaze Bemanya, the administrator, UTL maintains its even possible to get the price to less than USD50/MGBS. The two entities have respectively been competing for political backing from many power centers including State House whose number one citizen, the President, has since sided with the UTL administration team that continues to be closely supervised by Investment & Privatization Minister Evelyn Anite. To fortify her position against NITA-U, Anite on 3rd January 2018 got Museveni to commit himself in writing. The Museveni letter unambiguously directed that all MDAs, that had always spent billions buying expensive internet services from NITA, must immediately switch to UTL. He gave his reasons which we don’t have to repeat here because the letter (which we reproduce here) is self explanatory. The letter, to which as expected many MDAs have since complied, has moved mountains for UTL including cracking NITA’s resistance. NITA, that used to even shun meetings called to resolve issues with UTL, has since humbled itself to the extent that in his letter dated 14th March 2018, their ED James Saaka admits being indebted to Utl and gives out a road map NITA wants to follow to pay up the Utl debts. This debt, whose exact figure is still being disputed (UTL says Shs5bn and NITA says its Shs1.2bn), includes UTL services NITA consumed and most importantly UTL money that MDAs have erroneously been paying to NITA. How did this happen? To understand, one has to read the following text:
MDAS’ INDEBTEDNESS;
Many years ago before the Museveni directive came into the picture, the old inept UTL management used to supply internet to MDAs like UNRA etc (they are 33 in total) but for one reason or the other, the Finance Ministry would monthly credit the money to NITA account. And perhaps because they had many other much better things to do, the old Utl management never bothered to claim from Finance. This is how it accumulated to billions, according to Minister Evelyn Anite. Following the President’s January 2018 directive, NITA & UTL delegations have been holding meetings to agree on how much is owed and on the formula on how it can be paid expeditiously to fast track the UTL recovery. Its in these reconciliation meetings that disagreements on the figure have cropped up; whereas UTL claims its over Shs5bn, NITA ED Saaka says its slightly above Shs1.2bn.There are lots of correspondences and letters to that effect; some of which we are sharing to illustrate this story.
Meanwhile the MDAs are also up in arms against PSST Keith Muhakanizi insisting that to avoid similar problems, the treasury should surrender money for their ICT budgets so that they directly deal with UTL to avoid future indebtedness similar to what the NITA situation has occasioned. Having seen the President’s directive, written in very clear terms, many MDA heads fear to be perceived as frustrating the President’s well illustrated determination to revamp UTL in the short term and turn it into a market leader in the long term. This is why they want autonomy of their ICT budgets so that they can properly deal with UTL directly while meeting their obligations as directed by the President.
THE UTL 5BN;
According to Bemanya’s letters, and others written by his URSB right hand man Mustapha Ntale, the following is how the Shs5bn arrears arise: Finance Ministry over Shs921m, UNRA over Shs622m, ISO over Shs567m, Makerere University over Shs548m, Lands ministry Shs439m, Tourism/Trade Ministry Shs387m, Uganda Police Shs355m, ICT ministry Shs345m, MoH Shs199m, MoES Shs161m, NITA Shs127m, Parliament Shs74m, Finance Ministry again Shs67m, Mulago Hospital Shs49m, Uganda Heart Institute Shs43m, UHRC Shs32m, Water Ministry Shs31m, President’s Office (Akibua) Shs28m, Naguru Hospital Shs27m, MoES/AfDB project office Shs21m, Internal Affairs Ministry Shs18m, East African Civil Aviation Academy Shs17m, the Judiciary Shs14m, UCI Shs12m, Prisons Shs17m, Sembabule Local Government Shs10m, Directorate of Industrial Training Shs8m, Foreign Affairs Ministry Shs3m, PPDA Shs2.9m, Public Service Ministry Shs2.3m, the judiciary again Shs1.7m, JSC Shs1.3m & MoH/AfDB project office Shs578,500. The consolidated total, according to UTL, is Shs5,164,083,375. The UTL management maintains that much of this money was erroneously paid to NITA by the Finance Ministry not knowing that the services being paid for had actually been supplied by UTL of the pre-administration period. NITA ED Saaka partly accepts this but disputes the figure being claimed by UTL. In his 14th March letter, Saaka accepts Shs1,250,874,449 to be NITA’s total indebtness to UTL prompting Bemanya to write back threatening to highlight this as a red flag in his weekly reports to the President updating him on the UTL revamp progress. For comments, call/text/Whatsapp us on 0703164755!
