Govt probes, freezes accounts of Departed Asians Properties

The brake applied by Finance ministry has paralysed the Board’s activity and the state of affairs will only change when signatories are changed.

A highly-placed source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, told this newspaper that trouble for the board started when a city investor, Ms Margaret Ssekidde of Seroma Limited, paid about Shs1.6 billion to buy a building on Plot 7A, Market Street, in central Kampala.

The sales agreement was signed by the DAPCB executive secretary George William Bizibu, board chairperson Abdallah Byakatonda and Ms Ssekidde.

However, Ms Ssekidde reportedly failed to take possession of the property and subsequently petitioned President Museveni, who ordered inquiries into the affairs of DAPCB.

Another source, who also preferred not to be named because they were not authorised to speak on the matter, said: “Custodian Board accounts have been frozen as investigations are ongoing.”
Ms Ssekidde on Tuesday declined to comment on the matter, calling the deals fake.

Asked if the fake deals she was referencing was in regard to DAPCB, Ms Ssekidde said: “Sebbo (Mr), those are fake deals. They are very fake and I cannot give you any more information on that.”

Highly-placed government sources also said there have been queries about the use of money that officials of the Board withdrew ostensibly for compensation payments for which there is no clear record or accountability.

“You know this board collects rent from the Departed Asian properties, but for a long time, they were only spending money and nothing was coming in. Even people who had been compensated when they were chased away have come back under different identities and are being paid again. There must be an inside collusion,” a source said.

The source said when the Finance ministry examined various transactions, they discovered that money was being taken out suspiciously and ordered that the current signatories be stopped from transacting business until new signatories are brought on board.

A 2020 audit report implicated the Board on a number of irregularities including the management’s failure to disclose any balances for properties and physical assets in the financial statements for the period despite properties being the Board’s most important asset.

“I noted that up to 90 properties whose owners had earlier been compensated had been illegitimately repossessed by new unknown claimants. These included several properties from which rent was being collected by the Board at the time,” the report reads in part.

The report also found an annual deficit of Shs1.14billion in the year 2019/2020, which the board failed to explain.

“I noted that this deficit reduced by 13.5 per cent from the previous year despite revenue increasing by more than 20 per cent. This implies that the continued existence of the entity is wiping out all the proceeds got from sale of properties,” the auditors noted.

The report also accused the board of bloated expenditure, saying the entity’s payables had increased from Shs71 million to Shs244 million, representing - a 243 percentage point increase from the previous year - yet the entity was preparing to wind down in the subsequent year.

Finance minister Matia Kasaija, who is the political line supervisor, was unavailable to comment on the alleged anomalies.

State Minister for Local Government Jenipher Namuyangu, who doubles as a board member, said: “I am not aware of the freezing of the accounts.  What I know is that the minister of finance had ordered that we stop withdrawing money from that account so that we can rearrange the signatories to those accounts.”

She added: “The investigations cannot stop activities of an institution; so, it is not true that the accounts have been frozen but I will find out and let you know.”

Mr Jim Mugunga, the Finance ministry spokesperson, said it is true the current signatories are being changed and are not allowed to transact on the accounts.
“We did not freeze the account, but we just stopped operations of the current signatories to change to the new ones. It is not uncommon to do that in government departments and agencies,” Mugunga said.

Board secretary reacts
Mr Bizibu on Monday denied all the allegations - both the failure to hand over the property to the prospective buyer and freezing of the account. He told this newspaper that if the accounts were frozen, he would not have paid his staff the previous day.

“I am telling you I paid my staff yesterday (Sunday). I work with an institution and what does it mean when an institution has paid its staff? Does it mean that the account has been frozen?” he questioned.

On the issue of failure to hand over a property that a client had paid for, Mr Bizibu declined to discuss the issue.

“If Margaret Ssekidde is the one who has told you, let her give you more information. I am tired of responding to your issues. Is this the only story you must write about? Why are you particularly interested in this story?” he responded.

Mr Bizibu also accused individuals, who he did not name, of using the media to fight the DAPCB team in pursuit of vested interests.
His phone went off air when asked to substantiate his claims.

Investigations complete
The allegations have also attracted the attention of Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase).
 A member of the committee told Daily Monitor that they had completed their inquiries and the team is now writing the report.

Another committee member, who preferred to speak on condition of anonymity in line with their rules, said they have found a number of anomalies and that they would have to meet with the Finance ministry officials to harmonise the findings before issuing a final committee report.
The committee reportedly discovered there were other prospective buyers, who paid money to DAPCB, but never possessed the property.

“These are some of the cases we are looking at and we want to make recommendations so that people who have not received their certificates and yet paid for property go to court, because you cannot just be politicking about such matters,” the source said.

Background
Departed Asians property
The Asians, after their expulsion by President Idi Amin in 1972, left behind property, which included businesses, stock and real estate.
By law, under the Expropriated Properties Act, all property that was left behind was vested in the government of Uganda under the authority and management of DAPCB.

For years, the board has had issues ranging from failure to effectively supervise the activities of the secretariat to outright corruption and negligence. Although Section 5 (1) of the Assets of Departed Asians Act mandates the board to sit at least once every month, the six ministers on the board are always too busy to meet.

The messes at hand include theft of public funds through fictitious compensations, double allocation of properties, forged land titles, sale of assets without proper valuation and missing documents.

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