UMSC secretary general fired over incompetence, corruption

The Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC) has fired its secretary general Hajj Ramathan Mugalu, ending his 12 year-tenure in the coveted position.

During its sitting on Wednesday evening, the UMSC Executive Committee chaired by Hajj Abdul Nadduli through a vote elected Mr Muhammad Aluma to serve as acting secretary general.

According to a source that attended the meeting at UMSC headquarters at Old Kampala, of the 21 executive members, 19 voted in favour of relieving Hajj Mugalu of his duties while two abstained. Moments after being elected, Mr Aluma took an oath of allegiance and promised to serve in his new position.

UMSC executive members accused Hajj Mugalu of abuse of office, corruption, extortion, failure to provide accountability of monies from various sold Muslim community properties. According to the UMSC constitution, the secretary general is the chief accounting officer of the council.

“Hajj Mugalu has exhibited high level of incompetence and mismanaged the office of the secretary general during his tenure. He has regularly been misleading the Mufti Shaban Mubajje to give false information to the Office of the President and other government offices, which has sometimes portrayed UMSC in bad light,” a source said

Mr Aluma, a lawyer by profession, has been working with the UMSC education department.

Hajj Nadduli has in a telephone interview confirmed chairing the meeting but declined to divulge the details referring this publication to Mufti Mubajje.

UMSC spokesperson Ashraf Zziwa Muvawala, said council will soon issue a statement about the changes.

“I want to make it categorically clear that the executive meeting is continuing today, Thursday and the official communication on that issue will be made available immediately after the meeting,” he said

Among the properties whose sale  Hajj Mugalu is  accused of having engineered include; the two square mile land at Bukaragi Village, Sembabule District, which was formerly known as Mawogola ranch that was sold to businessman Arthur Kayanja.

At first the UMSC top leadership denied selling the Sembabule land, but  Hajj Mugalu later  confirmed that the disputed piece of land  was disposed of  at Shs3.5b because the council has  not benefiting from it over the years.

He said the proceeds from the sold land was later used to purchase an apartment in Nyanja-Ntinda, a Kampala suburb which fetches Shs10m per month and another rental property at Nyanama Village, located off Entebbe road where UMSC earns Shs2.8m per month. However, both properties have not been publicly shown to Muslims.

Mr Mugalu assumed office in 2016 replacing Eng. Zaid Siraj Kavuma. Before becoming secretary general Hajj Mugalu was serving as Deputy Secretary for Education and Social Services and later Secretary for Social Services at UMSC.

[email protected]