Ex-president Amin’s family haven’t been paid, says son

The family of two-time former president, Dr Apollo Milton Obote, has indicated that they received partial payment about three months ago. “All I know, we received partial payments three months ago,” said Jimmy Akena. He declined to reveal how much the family received but referred this newspaper to his mother, Miria Obote for details.

Ms Obote could not be reached by the time we went to print as her phones were off.
However, Mr Hussein Juruga Lumumba, a son to Field Marshal Amin, told the Saturday Monitor that contrary to reports carried in State media on Wednesday, they have, in fact, not received a penny in spite of their repeated attempts to benefit from the national offer. “We have never received any funds that have supposedly already been paid to the designated recipients,” Mr Lumumba said.

Minister for the Presidency Frank Tumwebaze, and that of Information Mary Karooro Okurut yesterday both said they were unaware of what became of the promised payments. “I will have all the records from the Ministry of Public Service about this matter and find out who was paid and who wasn’t and also demand to know why payments were not done,” Mr Tumwebaze said by telephone yesterday.

Ms Okurut said: “ I will need to cross check because I am not aware.” Public Service ministry publicist Jonas Tumwine is quoted as having said that about Shs5.6 billion has since been released to all families of former presidents and other past leaders.

‘Not us’
Mr Tumwine said the amount paid to each family was determined by the President and his team not the Public Service ministry. Mr Lumumba observed that: “When we last inquired about the ex-gratia payments at the Ministry of Public Service last year, we were told that the processing of payments had been halted. At the time there was already an investigation into dubious payments.”

The late Amin’s family now wants to know who may have been given their share of the money as they do not have evidence that any of their family members received it. “We have never been contacted by the ministry at any time yet we have endeavoured to communicate with the office of the Permanent Secretary extensively on the matter including in writing,” Mr Lumumba said. He said with widespread payment to ghost entities, amplified by the billions paid to “ghost” pensioners at the Public Service ministry and the Shs50b scam in the OPM, the family fears that some past leaders’ families could end up being cheated.

Minister Tumwebaze has, however, called for patience, saying the matter is easy to resolve, promising that by Tuesday next week, he would have the issue sorted. Government in 2011 committed itself to pay out Shs11 billion to former presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, speakers and deputy speakers of Parliament and members of the Presidential Commission.

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