George William Bakka, the CEO for city money-lending firm Patasente Limited faces arrest after one of the victims from whom he obtained money by false pretences took him to court. Particularized as Civil Suit No. 110/2019, the matter is before Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court. The complainant is Brenda Katwesigye, a young city business lady from whom Shs80m was obtained. Patasente limited concentrates mostly on linking up intending borrowers with potential investors or lenders and documents on the Nakawa Court file show this exactly is what happened in the Katwesigye case. It all began in May 2017 when Katwesigye (who had known sweet-talking and smooth-operating Bakka one year earlier as they met on the Mandela Washington Fellowship program) was approached by the company with a persuasive proposal on table. Bakka reached out to her verbally through the phone and also through emailing and that is how the deal was concluded. Bakka said he was looking for working capital to enable Dickson Baseke’s Cooling Solutions Ltd meet its contractual obligations relating to the supply of air conditioning services. It was claimed Cooling Solutions had just won a lucrative contract to install air conditioning equipment on an upscale apartment in Kampala but didn’t have enough money to perform contract obligations. Cooling Solutions was to pay back at 5% interest. There was no security but Patasente Ltd (some of whose officials were previously cited in complex PENSE schemes) issued four promissory notes guaranteeing they would pay up in case their client Cooling Solutions reneged to pay (they also earn a commission off such deals; for that is how the business works and Patasente claims to be working to promote SMEs).
Each promissory note covered Shs20m and indeed Katwesigye disbursed the money in installments of Shs20m twice and finally another Shs40m. When it came to repayment, Patense Ltd which was supposed to recover the money and pass it on to Katwesigye reneged and started playing hide and seek games on the lender. They stopped taking her phone calls and replying her emails and only paid a fraction of the money after she served them with a notice of intention to sue. The balance was never paid and that is what she is suing them for in the Nakawa Court. It’s said there are many victims of such SMEs-related schemes and Katwesigye is just one of the bold few with guts to sue in court. Many others are dying or suffering quietly. For some it’s because they fear to be harmed because perpetrators of such schemes tend to have deep connections with especially rogue elements in the security agencies. Whereas the first two installments were transferred from Katwesigye’s Standard Chartered Bank account to that of Patasente in Stanbic, the final Shs40m was paid directly to Dickson Baseke by Katwesigye. This was so because the borrower urgently needed the money. But in their written statement of defense, the officials of Patasente Ltd (who referred Baseke) are denying responsibility saying there is no way they can be responsible for the Shs40m since Katwesigye never gave it to them. In their WSD, they advise her to instead pursue Dickson Baseke directly since he is the one who picked the money. Katwesigye’s court pleadings show that the promissory notes issued accepting responsibility over the Shs40m is the proof she has Patasente Ltd has to pay up. She is also relying on the contract they had signed with Patasente to fortify her claim against the Ntinda Kiwatule road-based Patasente Ltd company. On failing to directly serve the defendants, Katwesigye took things a notch higher by publishing her claim against Patasente Ltd in the Daily Monitor newspaper. It’s called substituted service and it’s meant to notify the elusive defendant that they have been sued and are obliged to file a defense within 15 days. Information on the company website (https://patanse.com) shows that Patasente Ltd funding partners include the World Bank, Citi Bank of the US and CGAP among others. These are reputable financial institutions which victims like Katwesigye want to become concerned, fear for their reputation and crack the whip on Patasente Ltd officials who don’t seem to mind anyone anymore. The top management bosses for the company are listed as Chief Marketing Officer Ebbyn, Chief Technical Officer Ivan Yiga, Chief Investments Officer Gilbert Mutungi, Chief Finance Officer Pauline Namuleme and Chief Executive Officer George William Bakka. Sources close to Katwesigye’s lawyers say whereas their client can forfeit her balance of over Shs40m, the biggest motivation in suing is to ensure many other would-be victims are alerted about the unreliability of such schemes so that they keep their distance. (For comments, email us on mulengera2040@gmail.com).
