By Mulengera Reporters
Under intense grilling by Mpaka Mwine, the Chairperson, the top management of Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) on Thursday reluctantly opened up and revealed to the physical infrastructure committee members that Kampala tycoon Godfrey Kirumira had controversially become the registered owner of the railway grounds, which is the open green huge piece of land famously located next to Victoria University and directly opposite Social Security House on Jinja Road.
The open green space if famous for hosting Jua kali exhibitions and other public events including music concerts and charitable causes. It has also previously been used to host celebrations relating to international calendar days and the anti-corruption marches.
Mpaka Mwine put it to the URC delegation that was headed by MD Benon M. Kajuna that he had credible information that a land title had been issued in favor of a private developer and demanded that the top management explains what exactly happened.
Perhaps fearing reprisals from the rogue-minded actors behind the deprivation of such valuable public land, the MD at first tried to say he wasn’t aware and needed time to verify the claim, which he implied he was hearing about for the first time as the accounting officer.
Led by James Waluswaka, the cantankerous Bunyole County MP from Butaleja, Committee members demanded that Kajuna takes the Committee seriously or else risk having himself locked up.
In the end, the MD said its KCCA management which knows what exactly happened. He asserted that much as the land is supposed to be URC’s, its KCCA which had lately been having control of the same. Mpaka demanded that only the truth is told to the Committee if the URC top bosses were to escape the severe consequences emanating from not being truthful.
It was at that point that it was revealed that its true a private land title was recently created in the names of Godfrey Kirumira who is a leading tycoon in Kampala where he is also renowned for owning plenty of rental properties. The MPs castigated Kajuna for being a floppy MD who merely looks on as public land entrusted to him as the accounting officer gets taken away by private developers in such a prime area as Jinja road in the middle of Kampala’s CBD.
As Mpaka directed that Kirumira has to personally appear to explain the circumstance of the controversial land acquisition and to also show cause why his title shouldn’t be cancelled and himself criminally prosecuted, the MPs demanded that even powerful officials from KCCA and the Kampala Affairs Ministry appear before the Committee to explain their role in the fraudulent giving away of public land. Generally, MPs had no kind words for Kajuna who many castigated for being an inept accounting officer for such an important Corporation.
Bukoto Central MP Richard Sebamala tried to defend Kajuna on grounds he is new and just one year in office but fellow MPs shut him up with a female legislator demanding to know what the top management had given him to become their defender instead of doing his work as a legislator and people’s representative. One female legislator was compelled by Mpaka to retract her claim that Sebamala had been gratified by URC top management members to use his position as a Committee member to defend them.
Some of the MPs promised to make a recommendation that URC gets disbanded like UNRA since Kajuna and his fellow top management members (Stephen Wakasenza, Michael Lagara, Isaac Natukunda, Grace Opoka, Eng. Prosper Musiime Vans and CFO Nina L. Nassuna FCCA) have failed to run it properly yet they enjoy a statutory monopoly status.
MPs laughed at Kajuna when he failed to explain how and why up to Shs25bn had to be expended on capacity building workshops for staff. The team couldn’t produce lists of staff who benefited from the trainings and the consultant who conducted the same. Mpaka Mwine demanded to know why spending Shs25bn on curious training seminars was a bigger priority for URC top management than erecting barriers which can be used to shield innocent Ugandans from moving train-induced fatalities and accidents which have lately been rampant.
The committee vice chairperson narrated a story of an incident which involved a moving train splitting the President’s convoy into two all because of the Corporation’s top management ineptness. It was claimed that on that day the President, who was in the convoy, survived narrowly. The MPs became even angrier and made it clear Kajuna is such an inefficient manager who is so unfit to lead a 21st century Corporation.
With Budyebo County MP Sebuga Kimeze being the whistle blower, the MPs also inquired into the circumstances under which a total of 398 wagons had been stolen or gone missing from the Corporation without the URC top management ever filing any complaint with Police or security in general. The top management members couldn’t say much beyond just claiming that a joint tripartite missing wagons’ committee had been established with membership from URC, KRC and TRC and that this is something which the former Minister Gen Katumba Wamala had been very much interested in, closely working with fellow Ministers from both Kenya and Tanzania.
The MPs demanded for written proof that indeed the recovery process of the missing wagons was on but the URC top management couldn’t promptly provide them with any. Instead, the MPs were told that whenever a wagon goes missing and can’t be traced within 90 days, its declared missing property. The URC bosses were also found flat-footed when asked about the inventory of the URC land. All the officials could tell MPs was that URC land currently stands at 20,000 acres across the country and its documented under 62 land titles, some of which they said are under the custody of the privatization unit at the Ministry of Finance.
On realizing that the URC officials weren’t taking the Thursday session seriously, Bunyole County MP Eng James Waluswaka raised his voice and warned them it’s not going to be business as usual. Waluswaka said that this is a PLU-led Parliament and that whoever acts corruptly will live to regret the day he was born. Saying that Mpaka Mwine was a very powerful Committee chairperson even though on the surface he looks humble and harmless, Waluswaka said predicted that Kajuna, the URC MD, would soon realize that you can’t mess up such a government parastatal and get away with it. Hoima Woman MP Asinasi Nyakato was another senior legislator who kept asking tough questions, just like the Chairman Mpaka Mwine.
It was clear from the Thursday session that there is going to be a lot the URC top management bosses are going to have to answer and explain themselves about in the coming days, weeks and months as Mpaka Mwine is not one chairperson who abandons Parliamentary inquiries midway. There is a record of him concluding blockbuster inquiries which end into interdiction and criminal prosecution of officers concerned as was the case with the cooperatives billions’ scandal whose perpetrators continue to be prosecuted at the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
