By Joachim Twino
Anthony Tumukunde, a 29 year old businessman based in Najjera is sad and blue after losing his residential house to money lenders from whom he borrowed Shs337m to do NRM party’s mobilization work. He says he contracted this debt at the instigation of his business mentor Gen Salim Saleh and senior Minister Mary Karoro Okurut. Tumukunde, whose Najjera residence valued at over Shs433m has since been taken by money lenders having staked it as security, says he was assigned by Gen Salim Saleh immediately after 2016 elections. He says there was anxiety in government that the young people in Kampala were going to riot in defense of Kizza Besigye’s claim that he had won the elections and his results had just been falsified by the Electoral Commission then headed by Eng Badru Kiggundu. He says that, on getting instructions from Gen Saleh, he was facilitated with Shs150m which he used to bribe and convince opposition youths to shun the pro-Besigye chaos immediately after 2016 elections. The target was the youths in Kampala and nearby towns. The idea was to form them into groups to which startup capital would be given to overcome joblessness. Whereas the house, seated on 27 decimals, is valued at Shs433m, Anthony Tumukunde borrowed Shs337m. He needed this money and badly after the Shs150m Gen Saleh gave him proved inadequate. The land on which the Najjera house sits is valued at Shs187m. According to a report by Vision Group senior writer John Semakula, Anthony Tumukunde says his life has become destitute and messed up because of the ingratitude and betrayal by NRM leaders specifically Gen Saleh and Karoro Okurut who got involved in the transaction because she was then the Minister for Security and naturally interested in the opposition youth riots. The Sunday Vision story shows that Anthony Tumukunde, once a well celebrated and envied landlord in the Najjera neighborhood, now lives in a rented house all courtesy of the ungrateful NRM bosses. Richard Todwong, the NRM Deputy Secretary General, says they aren’t liable because as secretariat they aren’t aware of Tumukunde’s debt and never assigned him any work. Todwong advises that Tumukunde follows up with Karoro and Gen Saleh and must hold those two accountable for his woes and not the NRM party. Tumukunde says that, as someone who benefited from Saleh’s connections and network to be able to do successful beef exportation business into DRC, he felt obliged to help towards stabilizing the youth who were increasingly becoming agitated with President Museveni’s 2016 re-election. He admits that one time when he desired to upgrade his beef business, he benefited from Gen Saleh’s magnanimity and generosity.
According to Sunday Vision, the amiable Gen recommended Anthony Tumukunde to Centenary Bank for a loan. With this financial boost, Anthony Tumukunde upgraded and modernized the refrigeration facilities for his beef business. He says when the money Gen Saleh gave him for the financial gratification of the Besigye youths in Kampala, he resorted to using his own money to reach more youth groups. That is how it became necessary to borrow using his own house as security. The Shs337m he borrowed in early 2016 has been accumulating a monthly interest of 8% and this is how the debt has accumulated to something he is currently unable to manage. He says Karoro gave him false hope by promising to use her ministry’s FY2016/17 budget to reimburse his Shs337m. The young man says that, having become frustrated with Karoro’s elusiveness, in October 2016 he reached out to Henry Tumukunde who months earlier had replaced Karoro as security minister.
He says the General from Rukungiri advised him to superglue on Karoro saying he wasn’t aware of the debt and the money being asked was too much for him to find. He says Karoro then promised he would get paid not later than November 2016, a promise that turned out false. He says eventually the money lender gave him the option of paying the debt that had grown to Shs1.5bn or else his house would be auctioned. At that point, a concerned Karoro wrote to the President but nothing much came out of that effort as the State House comptroller Lucy Nakyobe too turned her back on Mr. Anthony Tumukunde arguing as a committed cadre, he had a duty to sacrifice for the NRM party which he so much loves.
This has left the homeless young man with no option but to resort to the press to expose Karoro Okurut whose ineptness has condemned him in this destitution. Karoro told Sunday Vision she doesn’t remember Mr. Tumukunde that much but advised that if indeed his documents are genuine, then he should relentlessly follow his claim until he gets paid. Anthony Tumukunde’s predicament has been faced by others before. Years earlier Arvind Patel, the NRM leader in Kampala Central Division, got into similar problems when he along with Nina Mbabazi incurred debts worth over Shs5bn on behalf of the NRM. Mr. Patel, who used to be a very talkative Musevenist, has since gone into financial oblivion as money lenders and other creditors have never stopped to menacingly look for him. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755.
