By Mulengera Reporters
Last week, line Minister Gen Katumba Wamala gave Governing Board members for Uganda Airlines a new contract meaning they will be in charge for another three years. This simply means that they will serve up to August 2028.
There had been frantic efforts, by some haters including those from the Finance Ministry, to make sure that Ms Priscilla Sserukka and her other Board members don’t keep around any longer. One big man at the Finance Ministry (names withheld) had gone as far as lobbying the President not to allow renewal of the Board tenure but the Board members fought harder and more effectively using one of the powerful ladies in the Cabinet Secretariat.
Those working against the Board members’ retention considered these board members undesirable because they felt they weren’t working well enough with the CEO Jennifer Bamuturaki. This is why there were efforts to get a new Board in place so that Bamuturaki would be assessed and supervised more favourably.
Originally, the Board members had had their mandate extended for strictly three months as Gen Katumba Wamala carried out the necessary consultations. The re-appointment of the old Board members for another three years is bad news for CEO Bamuturaki who doesn’t see eye to eye with majority of them, including the Chairperson.
The Board members for Uganda Airlines include Herbert Kamuntu, Abdul Karim Omoding, Eng Prof Samson Rwahwire of Busitema University, Barbra Namugambe (represents Works Ministry, a shareholder) and Patrick Ocailap (represents Finance Ministry, a shareholder).
Only Eng Ibrahim Isoro wasn’t retained on the Board, for reasons which shall be exhaustively explained in a seperate news article. Company Secretary Susan Batuka (who came from UNOC, just like is the case with CFO Allan Kyeyune) is another important Board-level player but who, unfortunately, doesn’t see eye to eye with Bamuturaki.
The old Board’s retention is bad news for Bamuturaki because majority members don’t believe she is the best person for the job. In fact, recently the Board got the impression that all wasn’t going well and they asked the Auditor General to do a special audit on revenues of the company and also on issues to do with fuel management.
This was after top executives at the Dubai-based company, Mixjet, had raised a red flag on certain things protesting the circumstances under which their fuel supply deal was halted and split up to be executed by smaller entities/providers.
The special audit report, whose commissioning Bamuturaki originally supported, is out and has among other things revealed that $9m can’t be accounted for. It has also unearthed discrepancies in fuel-related expenditures and even consultancy fees, which the PFF MP Francis Mwijukye referred to during a COSASE session last week.
The special audit report has also equally been accessed by the President who, upon reading it, became more resentful of Bamuturaki. The same report is in the hands of the company shareholders namely the Finance and Works Ministry.
The leadership at Parliament is equally in possession of a copy as is the case with Chairman Medard Segona and a few other members of his COSASE committee. This is the reason why COSASE MPs are going to be having Bamuturaki for dinner in the coming days and weeks.
The contents of the report are shocking and have left Gen Museveni, who was already looking into claims of prohibited liquor being carried or flown into Somalia, very furious and with no option but to give up on the current top management at Uganda Airlines.
CEO Jennifer Bamuturaki’s three-year contract ended on 17th July and as of that time, there was no signal from State House as yet as to whether the H.E. still wanted her there or if it was time to let her go.
Unable to promptly get to the President, line Minister Katumba Wamala (who isn’t that much pleased with the CEO’s performance) guided the Board to work out some administrative arrangement whereby Bamuturaki would get an extension of three months (July-September).
This temporary arrangement was to buy time for the Minister to access the President and forge some way forward. The Board had assessed Bamuturaki and made some recommendations, which Katumba shared with the President seeking his guidance.
On reading the Board report, the President felt he wasn’t prepared to have Bamuturaki take out another 3 full years. He opted for a one-year extension and all this has, in writing, been communicated to Gen Katumba and the Board. This simply means that Bamuturaki, who says her first three-year contract (July 2020-July 2025) was a gift from the President because of her past whistle blowing and her late dad’s role in the anti-Obote struggle, has strictly between now and 17th July next year (2026) to sit in the CEO office.
President Museveni’s hands must have been morally tied in some way because in June 2022 (as he recommended to Katumba and the Board to give the job to Bamuturaki) his proposal was that she runs the show for three years after which the next CEO job (which earns Bamuturaki Shs60m per month, down from the Shs100m her expatriate predecessor earned) had to be recruited through a competitive process and this exactly is what majority Board members were prepared for.
Now there are credible fears that Bamuturaki won’t stand any chance once the CEO job is opened up to be competed for.
The contents of the special audit report, which partly explain why Gen MK (CDF) has lately been very belligerent against the goings-on at Uganda Airline, have left many observers and concerned government officials convinced that Bamuturaki may even not be tolerated to complete that one year which the President has just given her, as opposed to three.
With COSASE planning marathon public hearings, there are clear indicators that Bamuturaki’s operational space is only going to shrink because there is simply a lot that is going to be unearthed. It’s becoming clear that she has lately fallen out with everyone including some members of the top exco at the Airline.
Out of the 9 exco members, an increasingly paranoid Bamuturaki would struggle to name 4 allies. That’s not a good position to be in and more so at the moment like this when a big person like the CDF has just declared war on the organization. Gen MK, as always, fights his battles in the open and he has already gone public about the situation at Uganda Airlines.
Bamuturaki is equally not that much popular anymore among the 70 pilots the Airline has. These are powerful guys (earning big as much as Shs70m per month for some of them) and several of them talk to His Excellency Gen YK Museveni directly.
The pilots felt betrayed last week when Bamuturaki deflected blame while appearing before COSASE by telling MPs that the Airline company costs and expenses were very high partly because of the huge salaries pilots earn.
This displeased many of the pilots who saw this as an attempt to incite COSASE MPs to demand their personal appearance before Parliament. Yet the MK tweets have also made worse an already complicated situation at Uganda Airlines.
Some staff members of the company are now scared that their work place premises might be raided anytime from now. The staff members are also fearful that after the President rebuking the bosses at Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), Uganda Airline might be next.
With the likes of veteran Kampala power broker Andrew Mwenda being part of the lobby that is convinced that Uganda Airlines deserves better, in terms of the way its being managed (as was depicted the CDF’s tweet), an impression has been created that Bamuturaki (renowned for not keeping friends) no longer has effective backers in the high places. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
