By Joshua Walakira
In his characteristic style of combativeness and taking no prisoners, government spokesman Ofwono Opondo has furiously responded to the criminal conviction of Hong Kong businessman Patrick Chi-Ping Ho who the American Court found guilty of bribing foreign affairs Minister Sam Kutesa (SK) with $500,000 (roughly Shs2bn). He was convicted for international money laundering and engagement in corrupt practices using the US financial systems. The background to the offence is said to have taken shape around 2014 when Kutesa served as President of the UN General Assembly. Ho was arrested November last year and although he wasn’t directly indicted, the reference by prosecution to Kutesa’s name as they built their case created immense political anxiety back home with some MPs late last year trying to initiate impeachment proceedings against his as foreign affairs minister. The US Federal prosecutors told the district Court in Lower Manhattan that, moving through the US banking system, $500,000 (2bn) was wired from Hong Kong to the Food Security & Sustainable Energy Foundation account in a Ugandan Bank-for the benefit of Sam Kutesa. That in wiring the money, 69 year old Ho was operating on behalf of China Energy Fund Committee, a Hong Kong NGO based in Virginia US. The NGO had been retained to offer consultancy services to the UN Economic Council. That Mr. Ho used this consultancy status to build rapport with Kutesa during his time as UNGA President. That Ho planned to found business ventures that would enjoy preferential treatment in Uganda once SK was done with UN work and returned to Uganda to resume his cabinet duties. The same Ho was also pinned using another evidence of attempting to bribe Chadian President Idris Deby in return for favorable business treatment. The US prosecutors say later in May 2016 after SK returned to Uganda, $500,000 was solicited and received for the benefit of his Food Security Foundation about which not much is publicly known. That subsequently Ho was specially invited to attend Mr. Museveni’s swearing in ceremony in May 2016. The other prosecution evidence is that after the swearing in ceremony, Ho returned to Hong Kong convinced his fellow NGO leaders back home to mobilize another $0.5m disguised as campaign financing contribution for elections President Museveni had already won. Brian Benczkowski, who heads the US Justice Department’s Criminal Division, welcomed the conviction saying it was consistent with the US determination to cripple and overcome whoever seeks to use the American financial system to orchestrate corrupt practices through bribery. In a brief media comment on Thursday, Kutesa said: “The fact of the matter is simple: I did not receive any bribe. Certainly President Museveni did not receive a bribe and neither did they [Mr. Ho & his accomplices] get benefit for allegedly bribing me.” He promised a more detailed response in the coming days when he will comprehensively offer his side of the story.
OPONDO ATTACKS THE US;
This Saturday morning, moderator Oscar Semweya Musoke brought up the matter during the Capital Gang program. And Ofwono Opondo said the Americans have no moral authority to lead the war against corrupt practices manifested in the bribery SK is being accused of. “They write the rules for the world and dictate yet they always shift goal posts to make their mischief look normal. They keep getting away with it because they are the most powerful country,” Opondo ranted. “Nobody bribes in the world than the American government does. They bribe for business deals and to even cause regime change and the only difference is that they are the most powerful.” To illustrate this moral deficiency of the American system, Opondo referred to transgressions of President Reagan and GW Bush who was his vice president in Nicaragua where they funded rebels in whose favor arms were smuggled resulting into the conviction of Col Oliver North who was a close assistant to Bush Senior. He also referred to Panama and the American involvement with Noriega. He also referred to President Donald Trump whose pioneer National Security Advisor Micheal Flynn has since admitted to special counsel Robert Muller to criminally receiving campaign cash from Russian Oligarchs to justify his conclusion that Americans have no moral authority to lecture anybody on corruption. He was supported by opposition MP Abdul Katuntu who downplayed the Kutesa saga as nothing but a manifestation of the economic trade war between China and the US. Katuntu said it’s possible the Americans, who remain jittery seeing the Chinese cashing in on big deals in Uganda’s oil & gas sector, could be using this Ho trial to blackmail the Ugandan leadership in return for favorable treatment at the oil deals-making table.
ROBERT KIRUNDA DIFFERS;
Robert Kirunda differed saying as a lawyer, he knows this isn’t going to be easy. In his view, the Americans must have gone after Mr. Ho as part of broader preparations of the ground to eventually go after the targeted leaders of Uganda and Chad. “The way I know Americans, and I must confess in a very limited sense, this isn’t going to end just like that. Something bigger must be coming up and if I were Hon Sam Kutesa, this simply is the best time to retain some of the best law firms in the world just in case.” Other panelists admitted that there is no way the Americans would have gone against Kampala’s chief diplomat in such a very direct way without much more being planned in the coming months and years. Being the two lawyers on the Saturday panel, Katuntu and Kirunda said it was too early to rule out the possibility of Patrick Ho offering to cooperate by volunteering more implicating evidence in return for a lenient sentence. There was consensus on the panel that Ho’s conviction wasn’t a good thing for the country whose top leaders have been referred to by the US prosecutors in such very uncharitable terms. While saying it wasn’t good for government officials to keep responding to “every rumor,” Opondo implored Sam Kutesa to urgently come out with his clarificational statement to avoid being condemned unheard in the Ugandan public court. He maintained its important SK comes out and comprehensively rebut the negative impression that has been created of him. Oscar the moderator maintained that Mr. Ho’s conviction in the US Courts had come at the most appropriate time since the President will be publicly condemning corruption tomorrow Sunday 10th December during his televised address at Kololo Airstrip. Opondo said its important Museveni uses that Kololo address to denounce the corrupt government officials who must subsequently resign their positions. For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.
