By Otim Nape
Three professionally very important bodies, for the lawyers, have separately written letters indicting Danny Jimmy Agolei as a man totally unfit to hold office as the legal officer Soroti University. The first of its kind being a public University for the Teso region, this is one institution in which the President has sunk billions of shillings to construct the state of art infrastructure and its core mandate, according to pioneer VC Robert Ikoja, will be to teach medicine courses along with science education. Staff recruitment has been gradual and Agolei was among those whose recruitment by interim taskforce management (initially for 6 months) had to be ratified by council. When the pioneer new council, led by seasoned educationist FX Lubanga, moved to ratify his appointment as the legal officer, it emerged that his qualification and suitability for the job (which he previously held in acting capacity 2015/6) was being investigated by the IGG Irene Mulyagonja. As the University awaited the findings of the IGG, very indicting dossiers from three professionally highly regarded institutions came out clearly disputing his suitability for the job. Apparently, the University management had written to them (following whistle blower claims) seeking to establish his suitability for the position. In her 23rd February 2018 two page letter, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) Secretary Dr. Rose Nassali Lukwago discloses that Mr. Agolei hadn’t properly exited the post of magistrate. Instead he was disgracefully forced out after the Disciplinary Committee of the JSC and “found him guilty for failure to issue a receipt for the bail deposit and for failure to refund the same upon completion of the case.” Nassali writes:
“Consequently the Commission at its 109th meeting on Tuesday June 2009 resolved that he be dismissed from the Judicial Service with immediate effect.” This corroborates the whistle blower’s original view that a person of that level of integrity was ordinarily unfit to be appointed legal officer for a public institution moreover in a country where it isn’t hard to find lawyers with more appropriate levels of integrity and morally impeccable track record. Then on 12th March 2018, the Judiciary Chief Registrar Isaac Muwata wrote to the University governing council chairman FX Lubanga plainly stating that, whereas the University was desirous to give him assignments to represent it in court proceedings, Agolei was ineligible because “he is not on the roll of advocates [who are authorized or permitted to appear before a judge and make submissions].” This was the context and spirit in which the whistle blower complained to the IGG to the effect that Agolei had been irregularly recruited in the first place as legal officer and secondly that he wasn’t eligible to practice law in Uganda since his name doesn’t appear on the roll of Advocates. Prior to Muwata’s letter, the Law Council CEO Margaret Apiny had on 12th September 2017 written to the University indicating clearly that, as the body mandated to regulate professional conduct of the Advocates, they don’t recognize or aren’t aware of the legal existence of a law firm called “M/s Agolei Wakuku Mooli & Co Advocates” which Agolei had previously purported to practice under with offices at Communications House.
She writes in her short letter to the University Secretary that the above mentioned law firm “doesn’t exist on the list of approved law firms.” Having obtained these very indicting dossiers from professionally and ethically much regarded bodies, the S/U governing council is expected to call a meeting and give Agolei chance to defend himself whereafter his fate will be decided. Stakeholders will be anxiously waiting to see what council will choose between acquiescence and decisively cracking the whip to demonstrate very high ethical standards for the new Government University which the President is expected to launch later this year. It will be an opportunity for the government to show the extent to which they will or will not tolerate mediocrity at Soroti University. There is concern that, trusting that the legal officer had properly done his due diligence, the University management paid out Shs16m purporting it to be legal fees for a firm that turned out to be unqualified to get client instructions in the first place.
AGOLEI DEFENDS SELF;
Agolei’s own 28th March 2018 five page dossier, responding to these three indicting letters, discloses that the Shs16m was paid out in a dispute that concerned guys who were encroaching on University land. He argues the nonexistent (almost ghost) law firm was contracted because the accounting officer, who is supposed to have complied with the PPDA rules in order to catch such fake law firms, slept on the job and didn’t do due diligence.
He also says he is currently not a University employee since the IGG investigations made it impossible for Council to ratify (regularize) his appointment as Legal Officer. Ironically the man who confesses not being a University employee is in office. He dismisses Nassali’s revelations about him as false because he was never found guilty because the JSC Disciplinary Committee, which dismissed him with disgrace from the judicial duties (on grounds he had failed to adequately account for bail money), had no such powers.
In any case, he says, he has since challenged their decision in Court of Appeal and implies he can’t determine for the court how urgently they sit to hear his appeal matter. On Apiny’s letter and that of Muwata, Agolei indifferently argues that it doesn’t matter; it’s immaterial because he is seeking the job of Soroti University legal officer which doesn’t require him to be an Advocate of the High Court whose name must appear on Muwata’s roll of advocates. But stakeholders, sympathetic to the contents of the whistle blower’s complaint, wonder why, in a country with so many well qualified and enrolled advocates moreover of higher integrity, a public University like Soroti should hire someone so disadvantaged as if they are prohibited from recruiting/hiring more appropriately qualified officers/lawyers.
The unbothered man from Kapiire sub county also crudely argues that the fact that the accounting officer, in absence of the input of the contracts committee, proceeded to engage a law firm that Apiny’s letter implies to have been sham and fictitious lessens his culpability as the legal officer who technically should have advised the accounting officer on the well qualified law firms to contract. He denied claims that the firm he recommended incompetently filed the case in a wrong court saying that is supposed to have been a minor issue; not enough to explain why the University was compelled to pay Augustine Erimu and other land claimants Shs16m as an out of court settlement. He also blames his woes on University’s external lawyers (Okurut & Co Advocates) saying they hate him because he has always opposed the accounting officer’s decision to contract them as external providers of legal services to the University. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
