Junior Dave Kazoora, a celebrated veteran emcee and a businessman has lost a mega Airtel Uganda deal over fraud he allegedly committed way back in Rwanda in 2014.
Prosecution dragged Kazoora commonly known as JK to court, accusing him of deviating an advertising tender from Buddies Production (R) Ltd, in which he was a 50%t shareholder, to a new company he named ‘Buddies TV Ltd.’
He was convicted by Court to serve one year in Rwanda coolers and also pay damages amounting to Rwf15 million.
How Kazoora executed fraud
In 2012, he invested in TV production in Kigali partnering with another businessman identified as Davis Genza. At that time, the latter was housing, feeding and taking care of Kazoora as a baby while in Rwanda Capital.
The duo opened a productions company called Buddies Production Rwanda(Ltd). They employed over 30 staff. They struck a deal of 80m (Sh320m) Rwanda Francs contract with Airtel Rwanda, to shoot a countrywide campaign called Birahebuje One.
The then Rwanda Airtel country manager, Marceellin Paluku endorsed JK and lucky customers won laptops, cows and houses.
It was a successful campaign and easier for JK since he had been doing exactly same things back home in Uganda with Airtel.
He however, without knowledge of his partner Genza made a few changes and withdrawals.
Kazoora went behind Genza’s back and secretly registered a company called Buddies TV.
He got the Birahebuje 2 contract with Airtel Rwanda and used all the employees of the first company to run the operations.
In doing so, the source explains that Kazoora smartly hoodwinked the Airtel officials who assumed it was business as usual.
Kazoora pocketed 30% (Rwandese Francs 24m) of the total amount of the new contract, valued at Rwandese Francs 80m.
On discovering, Genza went to authorities who found out that Kazoora had erroneously registered his company and on top of that he evaded tax which is a serious criminal case in Rwanda unlike Uganda.
He was then arrested and later released after a few months.
Airtel Rwanda writes to Uganda
After he was freed from Jail, the fading TV personality returned home but still secured his deal with Airtel under his company Buddies productions. And he kept running all the campaigns of the telecom firm.
A source at Kiwatule based Buddies productions told TrumpetNews that when officials in Airtel Rwanda learnt so, they quickly wrote to their counterparts in Uganda to terminate his contract as fast as they could.
“And his last campaign with Airtel Uganda was Muje tulumbe where he was charged with publicising the football match between Uganda and Comoros which Cranes needed to win to qualify for the ongoing African Cup of Nations tournament,” a source said.
Adding that Airtel told JK that there is no way he could continue working with Airtel after his Rwanda incident.
“He has since moved on although he has been fetching huge revenue from Airtel,” a source said.