Museveni: asset or liability for Uganda?

Uganda, today, is a country at cross roads where almost everything is dysfunctional. Most worrying though, is the level of grand corruption that takes place with impunity.

As Ugandans take stock of President Yoweri Museveni’s leadership since 1986, the big question asked is whether he is an asset, or a liability, for Uganda given what is happening under his watch. The latest corruption scandal is the purchase of four refurbished locomotives by Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) at an inflated price of Shs48billion, a cost believed to be higher than that of new ones.

The locomotives bought from South African manufacturer, Grindrond Rail, were part of URC efforts to revamp the century-old metre gauge railway, at a time when, in other countries, new technology demands moving from the old metre gauge to the standard metre gauge, like the one installed in Kenya and running from Mombasa to Nairobi.

Members of parliament initiated a probe into how URC purchased the four locomotives that are incompatible with the rails running in the country.  James Oketch, a railways engineer and president of the Uganda Railways Workers Union, revealed that, “when the locomotives were being brought to Uganda they were hauled dead, a term used to describe moving the locomotive without providing any motive power.” He added that the railway line in Uganda is designed for 80 pounds, yet the new locomotives are designed to run on a 90 pounds line.

While appearing before the Parliamentary committee on Commissions, State Authorities and Statutory Enterprises (Cosase), chaired by Nakawa West MP Joel Ssenyonyi, Oketch said that, “currently the corporation is stuck with the locomotives because they were purchased without due diligence.”

According to Victor Byemaro, the URC Workers Union national general secretary, the locomotives are too long for the short triangular junction of the rail line and it cannot turn.

A team of URC officials led by managing director Stanley Sendegeya, told the parliamentary committee that they had initially planned to procure six-year-old locomotives at Shs 36 billion, but they ended up procuring four eight-year-old locomotives at Shs 48 billion. The decision, he said, was taken by chief engineer Julius Musimenta in disregard of recommendations by a team of experts within URC.

Although the acting URC chief finance officer David Musoke tried to downplay the scandal, terming it a “small problem,” investigators point a finger at his possible involvement with  Museveni’s corruption cartels, in stealing tax payers’ money.

 “Museveni’s talk about fighting corruption, is simply lip service. He knows very well that he and his close family members are the architects of grand corruption in Uganda,” an angry Kampala lawyer who did not want his names identified told The Great Lakes Eye. Nothing in the history of Uganda provides evidence of Museveni putting in any efforts in the fight against corruption.

Ugandans still have fresh memories of the junk helicopters scandal under Museveni’s watch.  This was in February 1997, when government signed a contract with Consolidated Sales Corporation (CSC) for the provision of four MI-24 attack helicopters at a total cost of $12,266,500.

The CSC was an off-shore company registered in the British Virgin Islands and locally represented (some said, owned), by Emma Kato. Government paid an advance of $6.5million, expecting to receive the first two choppers, the balance pending delivery of the other two.

In 1998, pilots at Entebbe Airforce base refused to fly the newly purchased choppers from Belarus  observing that the second hand choppers had no log books and therefore,  there was no way of establishing flight hours and details of their history. The choppers were also ridiculed as "junk" because they had not been overhauled.

In the junk helicopter scandal, the Parliamentary probe committee discovered that CSC was introduced to the Ugandan government by Gen. Salim Saleh,   who always acts on behalf of his big brother, Museveni. Saleh, neither faced jail nor paid back the lost money.

 Ugandans are watching in awe as the same man is freely given billions of tax payers’ money (unaccounted for) in a dubious corruption scheme named ‘Operation Wealth Creation.’ “I think Museveni has bewitched us Ugandans. How can tax payers’ money be stolen like this all these years and we are silent?” the same Kampala lawyer wondered.

Under Museveni’s rule, there were also hundreds of tractors imported from Cuba with wrong ploughs that could not be used.  There was the fiasco of military uniforms bought for men and women of NRA which, after importation, it was realised that the uniforms could only fit children and that almost the entire military boots consignment that came with the uniforms were for one foot. The list of corruption scandals is endless.

Since the junk helicopters scandal, the parliamentary investigations committees proved to be a white wash exercise as they cannot recommend prosecution of the corruption mafia gang led by Museveni, through Saleh. Museveni behaves like a man who hunted his animal called Uganda and he eats it the way he wants.

 The common man has been sacrificed at the altar of state instigated corruption.  What Museveni has told Ugandans, and we refused to listen, is that he is working for his own interests, his children and grand. Museveni has become more of a liability.