By Our Reporters
As Daily Monitor and NTV have previously reported, things are indeed very bad at the Ugandan Diplomatic Mission in Algeria. Much of the chaos relates to money and a lot of it whereby the Ambassador (Head of Mission) Alintuma Nsambu is up against a deeply entrenched clique of employees whom he accuses of not acting transparently when expending the Shs2.54bn the Finance Ministry annually allocates to the Mission operating under Vote 237. On the one hand is the whistle blower Alintuma Nsambu up against Accounting Officer Fred Tushabe and Financial Attache Samson Kamugendera. In his frequent whistle blowing to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kampala, Alintuma has been reporting to headquarters how the two have been sidelining him from the management of the funds. This is contrary to the Algerian authorities’ insistence (through a directive issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Algiers) that Heads of Mission must be the principal signatories on all Embassy bank accounts. Whereas the Uganda Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) recognizes Accounting Officers like Tushabe to have the last word on the Mission’s financial matters, by Algerian laws and practices the Ambassador takes precedence as head of the institution. Sources say the Ugandan chaos became even more peculiar and captured the attention of the Algerian bankers (Union Internationale de Banques) when the Ambassador, suspecting dubious transactions, stormed the bank manager’s office and inquired into secretive transactions the duo had been carrying out on the Mission account behind his back. This was after embassy employees, local staff and service providers went unpaid for months and the duo kept reporting during the Mission Finance Committee meetings that there was no money since Kampala hadn’t sent any. So Alintuma stormed the bank to inquire what exactly was happening since the Finance Ministry in Kampala insisted they had never skipped any quarter without sending the money. He agreed with the bank to freeze all the transactions until an audit was done to establish the extent of fraudulent transactions on the account. However, this didn’t worry the heavily Kampala godfather-protected Fredrick Tushabe because he is after all a frail old man who is retiring later this year on the account of age. Kamugendera is equally connected because of the powerful people he knows. This anomalous situation at the embassy hasn’t only impacted on work but has also prevented Alintuma Nsambu, who has headed Algiers Mission since August 2017, from being able to travel to present his credentials as the new Ugandan Ambassador replacing Amb Kiwe Moses Sebunya. Basing in Algiers, Alintuma was deployed by his mentor President Museveni to represent Uganda in three countries namely Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. Because of the ongoing chaos, Alintuma hasn’t had the resources to enable him travel to Tripoli and Tunis to formally present his credentials to be able to effectively represent his country in those two countries!
SITUATION BEEN BAD;
In what is widely perceived to be a move to frustrate Alintuma Nsambu and cripple his efficiency, the foreign affairs authorities in Kampala have even been sitting on a letter the President wrote four years ago directing that Alintuma must enjoy the remuneration, allowances and all the benefits of a sitting Minister. These are privileges already being enjoyed by other former ministers even when they are currently serving in less prolific dockets. The beneficiaries so far include Crispus Kiyonga, Rebecca Otengo, Barbra Oundo Nekesa, James Kinobe and other former Ministers now serving as Diplomats. Even locally, the ex-ministers serving as RDCs, Presidential Advisors etc are all earning full benefits and remuneration of sitting cabinet ministers. This means a monthly salary of not less than Shs30m, chauffeur-driven posh vehicles and VIP security among other goodies. For the case of Nsambu, whose closeness to the President is renowned to threaten some of his supervisors in Kampala, this hasn’t been happening. The President has had to write reminder notices inquiring why his man is being excluded. Only recently the supervisors in Kampala, some of whom enjoy lucrative financial partnerships with the likes of Fredrick Tushabe, reached out and apologized to Nsambu for this exclusion from the Ministerial treatment. He has since been promised to be paid all his arrears in the first quarter of the next financial year (2018/19) as ordered by the President. Consequently, the much squeezed diplomat from Masaka is anticipating to be reimbursed close to Shs1bn in his missed emoluments.
COOKING FOR HIMSELF;
Yet that isn’t all. Alintuma has been the only male Ugandan Head of Mission who has had to operate without domestic workers namely the cleaners, cooks and guys who do laundry at the Ambassador’s residence. Why? The young ladies that Kampala had recruited downed tools and disappeared back to Uganda after going unpaid for months. Accounting Officer Tushabe kept saying there was no money, life became hard for the girls and they fled back to Uganda leaving Alintuma Nsambu alone and frightened at the Ambassador’s rented residence. This left him no option but to slash/sweep his own compound, do his own laundry and cook his own meals to avoid starvation. “He would perhaps have died of destitution by now but two factors have bailed him out including being personally wealthy and secondly the fact that Algeria is a socially-oriented country and you need very little money to survive there,” explains a source familiar with Alintuma’s unenviable financial predicament in Algiers. As all this financial starvation targeting the HoM and his staff is happening, a one Annestaz (an office messenger) who is favored by the powerful Fred Tushabe gets paid everything including remuneration enhancements. Annestaz was casually recruited unlike Alintuma’s domestic office and home staff who were properly recruited with well executed employment contracts by the Ministry in Kampala.
POWER CUT OFF;
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the local utility authority on 27th April stormed the Ambassador’s residence and cut off electricity and water prompting Alintuma Nsambu to resort to using mineral water for bathing and laundry work. Available documentation, exchanged between Algiers and PS Patrick Mugoya, shows that the Ambassador’s residence stayed four days without power until Alintuma made phone calls to relatives and friends to raise the money and had the connection restored. The IT savvy diplomat must be regretting why he declined the Microsoft job in order to serve as Museveni’s diplomat. Nsambu, who had taken months without getting his Foreign Service Allowances/FSA (basically money on which Foreign Service officers live), suffered double tragedy when his internet for the embassy chancery too was cut off. This was for as little as Euros150. The power bill stood at Euros500 but the whole GoU (in Algiers financially represented by Fred Tushabe) couldn’t pay. Why? Because the accounting officer kept saying saboteurs at the Finance Ministry hadn’t sent the money. Alintuma was shocked to later establish this wasn’t true because the bank manager showed him the transactions and withdrawals the duo had been carrying out. This is how it was agreed with the bank that for every transaction that is done, the Ambassador must endorse much as the duo had ensured he wasn’t anywhere among the signatories to the account. This too didn’t work: Alintuma realized his signature had somehow been obtained and the transactions continued on the account even after his intervention. He then wrote to the bank insisting that as head of the institution (Mission) he had powers to freeze the accounts. Turning himself into a whistle blower, he wrote as much to his supervisors in Kampala. At the Chancery, which basically is the Ambassador’s office/place of work, Alintuma too suffered when his Administrative Secretary (a one Sanyu Nakiganda) quit protesting Fred Tushabe’s refusal to pay her salary and allowances. She had also been demanding a refund for the embassy activities on which she had been spending personal money. Tushabe, who is claimed to be out to frustrate the Ambassador, ignored all the reminder memos Nakiganda wrote demanding pay.
COMBATIVE DIPLOMAT;
Sources have told this news website that Alintuma partly caused problems to himself by being very inquisitive on arrival at Algiers. He for instance wrote an internal memo demanding that Fred Tushabe shares with him all the tenancy agreements, rent files, the mission procurement file plus staff contracts and qualifications. He also demanded an inventory of the Embassy properties which are mostly cars and office equipment. He also questioned why former accounts assistant Dan Tumwine had been sidelined and gotten rid of on grounds that he didn’t have ACCA qualifications yet even Kamugendera, who became Finance Attache after him, initially didn’t have those qualifications. The duo, who wasn’t used to such scrutiny, didn’t like this and sources suspect it’s the reason they developed a very apprehensive attitude towards Alintuma from day one. Alintuma also asked for the embassy work plans only to be there wasn’t any. Nsambu also questioned and tried to block the accounting officer’s efforts to get refunded for the Euros5,000 that he claimed to have spent buying a replacement key for the very old Prado which serves as the staff van at the Mission. The ninja claimed to have flown to Dubai just to buy that car replacement key. Alintuma questioned this figure and vowed to block it but failed because the duo proved too powerful for him. Saying he wouldn’t allow being marginalized yet by law he is the boss, Alintuma asked why he was being subjected to travelling in a 20 year old embassy vehicle that keeps breaking down in the middle of the road yet the government policy is that official vehicles must be replaced every after 5 years. “Y/E [Your Excellence] it’s because there is no money,” one of the embassy staff wrote back. This prompted Alintuma to ask why an Embassy of just 15 employees can’t operate and survive on the Shs2.54bn Finance Ministry annually avails. Relatedly Nsambu also expressed discomfort as to why the accounting officer Fred Tushabe frequently travels to Kampala for meetings with some powerful officials at the ministry whenever PSST Keith Muhakanizi makes the quarterly release. He also questioned why in the books Shs90m is reflected to be the monthly remuneration expenditure for the embassy yet in actual sense Shs60m is all that is spent remunerating (basically paying their FSA/the real salary is paid by K’la) employees per month. When the Algerian embassy staff (four of them), including the Ambassador’s driver and gardener became agitated after months of no pay and petitioned the Algerian government and the Algiers Foreign Affairs protested to him, Alintuma mounted pressure on the duo to pay up and this escalated bad blood between him and them.
NOT PRIORITY;
When Alintuma’s demands became too much, Fred Tushabe on 17th May 2018 wrote to the Under Secretary Finance & Administration James Kintu saying that payment of rent to one of the landlords whose premises the embassy rents, was more urgent than the petty issues the HoM/Nsambu was raising. “I have to report that this old man is extremely distressed by our failure to pay the rent as originally promised. The old man is a retiree, he has obligations with the bank and has informed us that his son attending a Flying Academy has been sent home for failure to settle tuition,” partly reads Tushabe’s memo sent to headquarters in Kampala. It was addressed to James Kintu whom the PS Patrick Mugoya has assigned to investigate and fix the chaos at the Algiers Mission. Tushabe says he has been meeting the distraught landlord along with Finance Attache Samson Kamugendera and Steven Mushana the counsellor. Tushabe reports to James Kintu that there is Euros7,650 lying idle on the embassy account and demands to be permitted to use it to pay the landlord. Ironically, the same Tushabe who has been failing/refusing to pay Alintuma’s domestic and office staffers their FSA on grounds the coffers are dry, informs Kintu that on 26th April he withdrew Euros18,900 from the bank account but doesn’t disclose what he expended it on. Tushabe pleads with Kintu to permit him to pay because this being Ramadhan, Uganda will be cursed and negatively written about in the Algerian media, a thing that will hurt its image. However, Kintu refuses to authorize the payment insisting a forensic inquiry will have to first be conducted by a team of auditors headquarters will be dispatching to camp in Algiers between 27th and 30th May 2018. In agreement with the demands Nsambu has been making from day one, Kintu demands that Tushabe prepares records for the entire FY’s expenditures, procurement records, tenancy agreements and staff employment contracts because the auditors will be scrutinizing them to establish the extent of fraud at the Mission as alleged by Nsambu. Reliable Ministry sources tell this news website that the team of auditors will travel with the Ministry’s head HR, Under Secretary James Kintu and Head of Accounts to ensure the Algiers chaos is resolved once and for all.
M7 BITTER;
The President is understood to be very unhappy with the chaos at Algiers because of the importance he attaches to this Mission. For starters, Algeria played a very big role in the 1979 war that ousted Amin from power. Whereas the Tanzanians were willing to risk hosting the coordination of the anti-Amin military campaign, they were a poor country and lacked the heavy weaponry that was required. The Algerian government, notwithstanding being Islamist, offered to help and this risked complicating their relations with nearby Libya under Gadhafi who was a diehard Amin supporter. The Sabasaba gun that was used to overwhelm Amin was actually supplied at the Algerian tax payers’ expense. This is a gesture for which Museveni remains very grateful to the Algerian authorities. The other more secretive relationship between Uganda and Algeria related to Nelson Mandela. The South Africa anti-Apartheid icon acquired military training in Algeria but travelled on the Ugandan passport. This is another historical aspect Museveni considers very important in our diplomatic relationship. “He is unhappy to see guys at foreign affairs taking this relationship lightly,” a reliable source said about the President’s concerns about the chaos in the Algerian mission. Yet the above isn’t all that is very disturbing regarding the mismanagement of the Algerian mission whose predicament by the way is not very different from what diplomats suffer in other Ugandan Missions. “The biggest problem is the sharp divide between the so-called political appointees [former politicians who M7 makes ambassadors] and the career diplomats. The former believe they must work hard and loyally deliver results for the H/E because they have no job security and can be fired anytime. The latter are complacent believing even if they don’t deliver much, they won’t be fired because they are engaged on permanent and pensionable terms,” another HoM said in a bid to show that what Nsambu has faced isn’t different from what colleagues endure elsewhere. “He is just bold and too intolerant to injustice unlike us who resent the same mediocrity but aren’t courageous to confront evil at our Missions. Many prefer to keep quiet in the comfort zone to avoid losing their jobs.”
DENNIS KALIKOLA;
There is also the very painful experience that has been endured by Dennis Kalikola who serves as Second Secretary at the Ugandan Mission in Algiers. In our possession is a letter in which Kalikola demands that Tushabe immediately pays him his remuneration arrears amounting to Euros7,918. Kalikola, who is understood to be pondering resignation in protest to Tushabe’s exploitative tendencies, particularizes his claim to include expenses incurred on Morocco trip, internet, water bills, electricity & gas bills, the Tunis trip to arrange for HoM’s presentation of credentials, FSA upon promotion, warm/climatic clothing, child and education allowances. In his 8th April 2018 claim, Kalikola reminds his addressees that the matter of his and other staffers’ unpaid remuneration has many times been discussed and well minuted during the Mission’s financial committee meetings which by law are chaired by the Ambassador himself. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
