By Wafula Malik
Under CRB/464/2018 of Wandegeya Police Station, security agencies are investigating Abdullah Naleka (an influential NRM Chairman from Mbale), Julius Ceaser Tumwesigye (a vastly connected property broker) and Peter Katongole (an aide to Uganda Land Commission chairman Baguma Isoke) for conniving to defraud a Chinese investor from whom they fraudulently obtained Shs250m. The trio was arrested last Wednesday by CID operatives attached to State House Health Monitoring Unit (HMU) after they had successfully forged Health Ministry PS Dr. Diana Atwine’s signature and effected transfer of ownership of government land belonging to Mulago Hospital. Particularized as 2A-10A, the prime land whose ownership they had transferred to the Chinese investor is located in Kitante. Having been veterans at their game, the trio is heavily connected and if it wasn’t for the backing of Dr. Atwine, CID operatives had given up arresting them. “Each time we moved to arrest them, senior police officers would intervene. At some point, their backers tried to arrest us instead but they backed off on realizing the complainant was the Health Ministry PS Diana Atwine,” says a police source close to the matter. “Abdullah Naleka was very verbose. He tried to beat us up saying he was a very big man in the ruling NRM government who shouldn’t be humiliated but we stood our ground and subdued him.” The first to be nabbed was Tumwesigye who initially threatened the CID operatives claiming to be a powerful man in State House, a claim he abandoned on realizing Atwine (who is personal doctor to the President) was thickly involved and wanted the fraudsters brought to book. But Tumwesigye’s contacts persisted because even at Wandegeya police station where he was detained he was frequently visited by people driving in posh cars whose relentless pressure eventually overwhelmed the Wandegeya police authorities to release him on police bond. Guess who stood surety for him resulting into his release. It was Willis Bashasha, who until recently was Secretary (PS) office of the President. Bashasha, a former Bushenyi LC5 Chairman, powerfully heads the Museveni Manifesto implementation unit which is part of the President’s office. “Not that he was complicit in the land fraud. No. Bashasha apparently just came in to stand surety for someone he deeply knows away from the criminal offence for which the man was being detained,” explained a Wandegeya police officer close to the matter.
CLEARLY CONNECTED FRAUDSTERS;
The other two suspects manifested equally deep connections going by the profile of people who stood surety for them to be released on bail. Abdullah Naleka, discredited as he is, got Zubair Galiwango and Yusuf Gaddafy (two powerful figures from Mbale) to stand surety for him. So prominent is Naleka some NRM functionaries had a weekend prior to his arrest tried fronting him to oust Nandala Mafabi as the BCU Chairman. However, Nandala’s supporters blocked him on grounds his profile as a farmer wasn’t adequate to run for such a position. Corroborating most of the things our security sources had told us, Dr. Atwine confirmed being the complainant who caused the trio’s arrest. “I’m suspicious there is a syndicate involving some people at ULC in this connivance. Previously letters had been written to me by the ULC soliciting that I write a letter of no objection so that that same land can be allocated to foreign investors. I have been consistently saying no because Mulago has a master plan to expand and use that land in future,” Atwine told this news website. “It seems having failed to get what they wanted from me for all this time, the fraudsters resorted to forging my signature to present a fake letter of no objection in order to complete their transaction.”
HOW ATWINE GOT TO KNOW;
This time round, the fraudsters targeted Yu Shung (a Chinese investor seeking for land for his project) whom they approached through Tumwesigye. The prospect of getting a lease so cheaply (Shs250m) in such a prime location was so tempting. And on getting a brief from Tumwesigye, Shung referred the matter to his lawyers Kinobe Mutyaba & Co Advocates. This is the firm for Law Society President Peter Kinobe. Shung gave his lawyers an offer from ULC dully signed by ULC Chairman Baguma Isoke and it was backed by a letter of no objection from Mulago/MoH the owners of the land. As they went about due diligence, the lawyers wrote to Atwine seeking confirmation that this indeed was her signature. On reading the thing, she hit the roof. “I was so furious that ULC’s previous failed efforts had come to this. I wished I could land my hands on these fraudsters defrauding in my name. I would have caned them thoroughly if they were anywhere in the vicinity,” says Atwine renowned for her hands on approach. She told this news website that she wrote back to the law firm denying authorship. “I also communicated to colleagues at the Health Monitoring Unit [of State House] who dispatched operatives that hunted for the fraudsters,” Atwine says. “I realized this is becoming a serious racket operating as a syndicate with godfathers in different government entities.” The documents lawyers shared with Atwine showed that she had written the no objection letter on 2nd August 2018 and it was stamped as “received” by Baguma Isoke’s office on 3rd August. Ironically, Isoke had on 29th June written to Atwine seeking her no objection for the ULC to reallocate that same land to an investor on lease basis since Mulago hospital wasn’t using it. The consters had been so effective in their operations, they had even managed to sneak Shung into Isoke’s office for some preparatory meetings. Isoke’s 29th June letter (to which Atwine had replied with a no) is what Tumwesigye obtained and gave the Chinese the impression it was being taken to Atwine to write her no objection. CID operatives now think there was connivance because of the curious circumstances under which Tumwesigye came to deliver Isoke’s letter to the MoH yet he isn’t one of the ULC employees who are mandated to deliver such correspondences. “Although even Isoke will have to be interrogated at some point, we are right now zeroing in on Peter Katongole [ULC Office Supervisor and Transport Officer] to establish why he used Tumwesigye to deliver the letter to MoH well knowing he isn’t their employee,” said an operative close to the investigations. Indeed on being arrested, Tumwesigye (who had to be tracked using phone technology having declined CID summons) defended himself saying “but I’m not a ULC employee.” He resorted to saying this after his claim of being a State House representative failed to cow the CID detectives. The Chinese and his lawyers too had to be interrogated and Shung revealed that as he waited for his final lease title, he had already parted with some Shs250m. Unconfirmed reports say it was failure to properly share the loot that left some gang members disgruntled and its them that leaked the info to Shung’s lawyer resulting into the whole racket being unmasked. That during the three days of detention and interrogation (Wednesday-Saturday), Naleka cracked and gave operatives more useful information implicating some of the big government officials that are part of the racket. Being the first suspect to be arrested after being identified by Shung as the original source of the forged document, it was Julius Tumwesigye who implicated Naleka and Peter Katongole. Whereas Tumwesigye was arrested from Makerere/Wandegeya where he operates from, Naleka and ULC’s Katongole were harvested at nearby Dewinton road. “Naleka says doesn’t have an office in Kampala and Dewinton has been his base for many years. He would sit in the restaurants and people there think he is an employee of ULC because he is always discussing land matters,” said a knowledgeable CID source adding that following this Shung scandal, the ULC management has had to relocate offices to Nakawa as part of the cleanup efforts. “However much they [ULC] can relocate we aren’t leaving them just like that. We are continuing to investigate possible connivance because how could fraudsters obtain their stamp for the letter the chairman’s office received and even got to be assigned to take Isoke’s letter to the PS Health?” Sources added that the CID operatives are confident to have the trio successfully prosecuted once the matter goes to court because ULC Secretary Robert Nyombi “is very enthusiastic and has been cooperating well so far.” Nyombi, who was controversially made ULC Secretary a few years ago, is understood not to be on very good terms with his Chairman Isoke who as of September was on bended knees begging for renewal of his contract as ULC Chairman. Nyombi has lately toughened and is determined to weed rogue elements out of ULC which the President wants to transform into a Land Authority. Nyombi is being marketed to be the pioneer ED for that Authority, something Baguma’s supporters don’t like. Atwine (who remains displeasured that the trio was released to comply with the 48 hour rule) has since written to PS lands and Solicitor General Francis Atooke insisting that the trio be immediately prosecuted. “I also want the Bamugemereire land Commission to become interested and take up this investigation into fraudsters working with ULC to steal government land,” Atwine told us.
