Since we broke out the big story that Kiira Motors was allegedly manufacturing buses in China instead of in Uganda, the Inspector General of Government (IGG) who received the petition from a whistleblower has commenced plans to investigate.
The matter which if it turns out to be true, will shed a black spot on a national project that is supposed to be the pride of Ugandans.
“We are looking at the matter, and if it warrants an investigation,” we are going to take it up, an officer in the information office at the IGG who declined to be named told this newspaper.
The background to this incident..
The Cabinet of Uganda allocated about Ushs 40 billion to Kiira Motors for developing locally made motor vehicles. However, along the way, a former student who said that he was part of the project but had been unfairly dropped from it caused an uproar in the public, when he made allegations that in fact the buses were not being manufactured here.
Subsequently another whistleblower took the matter in his or her hands and delivered a petition to the IGG, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and State House Anti-Corruption Unit.
It is on this basis that the IGG is considering this investigation.
Excerpts of the petition which he or she sent is here:
“ In April 2018, the cabinet approved a seed fund of US Dollars 40 million to be made in phased payments over 4 years starting in 2018/2019 financial year to commercialise this project, it is well known that save for the Kiira EV, no bus has been manufactured or even assembled in Uganda but the same have been purchased from China and shipped to Kampala and paraded before both his Excellency the President and Ugandans to hoodwink them in a bid to justify the funding received from government while the same continues to be siphoned by its management” the petition states.
