Prime
Inside Speaker Among’s iron sheets return drama
Speaker Anita Among
What you need to know:
- What aides expected to be an easy exercise yesterday ended up in a seven-hour standoff at the Office of the Prime Minister stores until police detectives arrived in the afternoon to enumerate the roofing materials using methods akin to crime-related evidence gathering, and tagged a note inscribed with the initials AAA to the consignment.
The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) last evening accepted into its stores a consignment of 500 iron sheets from Parliament Speaker Anita Among, ending a dramatic day of seven-hour standoff and month-long stalling.
Ms Among announced mid-last month that she was buying iron sheets to replace those she received from the Ministry of Karamoja Affairs, domiciled under OPM, which originally procured 100,000 pieces for reformed youthful warriors and vulnerable Karimojong.
The allocations to her and two-dozen ministers are now a subject of criminal investigations at the urging of President Museveni, who said political executives who received the roofing materials were either thieves or subversive elements.
Yesterday’s drama unfolded on the day this publication splashed the story of Among’s plan to return the iron sheets remaining wet in the wings over a manufacturer’s refusal to make new ones without express authorisation by OPM.
That jinx was broken when aides to the Speaker secured written permission from Undersecretary Geoffrey Sseremba on Wednesday this week, following reports that his March 16, 2023 instruction for unexplained reasons never reached MM Integrated Steel Mills, the manufacturer.
The 500 iron sheets that were returned at the warehouse of OPM in Namanve by Parliament Speaker Anita Among on April 13, 2023. PHOTO / ABUBAKER LUBOWA
The company had the new iron sheets ready and stacked in a truck by yesterday morning, enabling an ensemble of the Speaker’s assistants to lead the driver to Namanve Industrial Park, east of Kampala, to deliver the roofing materials by 9am.
However, the delivery of the items aboard Fuso truck registration UAS 426T, after a smooth ride, rammed into an administrative cul-de-sac when OPM officials at the stores declined to receive the consignment.
They first cited lack of authorisation by their supervisors at the headquarters in the capital’s central business district before adding a demand for police clearance to iron-clad their objection.
“We are here to ensure that we receive iron sheets from the Right Honourable Speaker. Before we received them, we have to make sure that the Criminal Investigations Directorate [detectives] are here so that we can count [the pieces] together,” said Mr David Kayongo, a senior assistant secretary for finance and administration at OPM.\
Insisting that they were awaiting instructions from the OPM undersecretary on procedure to follow and from the Speaker confirming return of the replacement iron sheets, Mr Kayongo added:“We also want to know the type of the iron sheets that have been brought back, gauge and the company [that] supplied [them]. There are details we want to know before we can receive them and afterwards, issue a ‘goods received note’.”
That was just about 9am and the earth was beginning to warm up under the feet in Namanve Industrial Area and so was the drama playing out.
The Speaker’s Personal Assistant, Mr Rajab Kaaya Ssemalulu, alongside her spokespersons Dominic Bukenya and Joseph Sabiiti, began making frantic calls in the presence of one of Ms Among’s guard wearing anti-terrorism police uniform.
The stores team refused to budge and nothing materialised, leading to a stand-off lasting hours and during which neither Ms Among’s aides nor a battery of journalists mobilised to cover the return of the iron sheets, grabbed lunch.
They alternated between taking rest in the shade of a mango tree on the premises and sight-seeing industrial establishments in Namanve as the baking sun took its toll.
It was not until about 3:20pm when a police pick-up truck, registration UP7534, steered by a lady driver and carrying a team of four detectives, pulled up to the relief of all present at the site.
A policeman on the premises promptly led the detectives into an upstairs room within the store for a meeting with the Speaker’s aides and OPM officials that lasted for about an hour.
They were handed stores record with details of number, type and quality of iron sheets that the Speaker received from the Karamoja consignment.
Inside the stores, a pile of bean sacks were removed ostensibly to clear space for placement of the iron sheets. However, following the hour-long meeting, officials decided the roofing materials would instead be moved to another storage facility, roughly 300 metres away.
And police detectives began their work, meticulously. They physically counted the iron sheets bound in dozens after taking measurements to confirm the gauge, width and length of the pieces.
One Scene of Crime Officer (Soco) under Police’s Directorate of Forensic Services used an upper body camera to record the exercise and another took still pictures in an enactment of standard investigative practice when gathering crime-related exhibits or evidence.
The enumeration that began at 4:39pm ended at 5:45pm with the iron sheets being stacked inside the stores in a space distinct from similar consignments. Detectives tagged the pile with a note containing the initials AAA.
The investigators led by a one SSP Charles Babwetera, a senior detective, declined to speak to or take questions from journalists, referring all inquiries to police spokesman Fred Enanga who was unavailable by press time.
Whereas the Speaker was able, despite initial stalling, to hand in the 500 pieces of iron sheets, another minister was not as lucky.
The OPM stores team at Namanve declined to receive iron sheets trucked in a Canter lorry. Three men aboard the vehicle refused to speak on the consignment and were still at the stores by 6:30pm yesterday when this reporter vacated the premises.
President Museveni in an April 3 letter to Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, herself a recipient of the Karamoja iron sheets alongside Vice President Jessica Alupo and 22 other ministers, ordered that Cabinet members in possession of the pieces should return them and those that already donated them to constituents for what he called “cheap popularity” pay money equivalent to the value of the quantities that they took.
He did not prescribe the manner of returning the roofing materials, leaving ministers to second-guess whether to do so through police, which alongside the public prosecutor and State House Anti-Corruption Unit (SHACU), are investigating the diversions, or take consignments directly to OPM stores where their aides picked them in the first place.
While promising “political action” after state agencies conclude investigations, Mr Museveni, who is the appointing authority of minister, said those found culpable of applying the iron sheets for personal use be charged with theft.
Probe
SHACU unearthed the irregular sharing of the iron sheets meant for Karamoja during inquiries that began in February, this year, leading to the arrest and release of members of the family of Karamoja Affairs Minister Goretti Kitutu allegedly caught selling the pre-painted corrugated G28 iron sheets to villagers in her constituency.
The minister was arrested alongside her brother and last Thursday charged at the Anti-Corruption Court in Kololo, Kampala, with conspiracy to defraud and causing loss of government property while her sibling was indicted for being in possession of stolen property. The duo was remanded to Luzira Prisons and the minister is expected to make a third attempt at securing bail when she reappears in court today.
