Uganda Civil Aviation Authority employees have asked Works and Transport Minister, Gen. Katumba Wamala to investigate former board members who they allege were involved in a racket of syndicated corruption.
In a May 11, letter to the Minister, they allege that the said board members would under the guise of supervising work call and threaten suppliers and service providers with the intention of making money from them before being given a contract.
“We salute you honorable Minister and thank you for the good work you are doing for our country. Honorable Minister we have learnt that the shortlisting of candidates for the position of Director General has been done. But reliable information we have picked indicate that some of people who previously worked with Civil Aviation Authority who have known questionable integrity and poor work culture have been shortlisted”. reads part of the letter sent to Minister Katumba.
“Notable among them are Ms. Olive Birungi Lumonya and Mr. Tom Davis Waswa. For starters, Ms Lumonya was for two terms, a CAA Board Member and while as a Board member she undermined corporate governance principles. She is reported by her former colleagues to have forced her way to do management work on many occasion for selfish motives and personal gains. Sir, there is a scenario in which she is well known and it involves the USD $4,800,000 Supply and Installation of Baggage Handling System (BHS) project at Entebbe International Airport. We have it on record how Lumonya insisted to travel to Netherlands to the Headquarters of VANDERLANDE disguised as carrying out a due diligence, although the actual reason was to discuss a commission (bribe).” the concerned employees wrote.
They alleged that Lumonya and another board member were accompanied by the then Corporation Secretary Sarah Sebunya for an exercise that was meant to be done by CAA Technical Managers. They say the travel cost CAA $50,000 in allowances and business class air tickets.
“According to the project Manager who later faced investigations by IGG on alleged corruption, the group that travelled to Netherlands demanded for 10% which was $480,000. They picked the money and you know honorable that to date the BHS is still a major set-back to passenger process at Entebbe International Airport. Even after the BHS system failed to work, they could not compel Vanderlande to repair it despite its being on warranty. We are told they kept reminding them on the money that was picked until the warranty expired”.
The whistleblowers further say another case involving Lumonya and Waswa is that of supply and installations of the car parking system, “they did the same, she insisted to travel for due diligence to Nairobi, Netherlands and Germany this project was over USD 1 million and they picked a commission (bribe) and these are among the many cases.
The other necked corrupt Ms Lumonya was involved in with Manager Marketing and Commercial Mr. Tom Davis Waswa was the Marketing Agency called Prime Media Ltd. She forced Prime Media Ltd unto CAA. The Company was hired to manage the advertising space and ensure to attract companies to advertise at the Airport to increase CAA non-aeronautical revenue.
The contract provided for CAA to collect the money and Prime Media Ltd is paid a commission. Mr. Tom Davis Waswa undermined the provision of the contract, instead of the advertisers paying CAA and CAA in turn paying Prime Media Ltd her commission, the reverse was done. Just because money would not easily be stolen after it enters in CAA Accounts”.
“The Project Manager Waswa was aware of this but he did nothing to enforce it. The two allowed Prime Media to continue collect the revenue and was to remit whatever they wished without any form of reconciliation.
This thieving continued until when the Board where Lumonya and Kakuba were forced out. After they exited, Tom Waswa also resigned and got a lesser paying job and this left many of us wondering why resign at a higher paying and then get employed at a lesser paying one”.
They further allege that recently, CAA internal Audit unearthed this thieving which point to a fact that this a syndicated dealing among the manager (Wasswa and these board members).
UCAA is trying to recover this money from Prime Media totaling to $4,575,000 as of May 3, 2021 through Ms Ssemambo & Ssemambo Advocates.
“Sir, with your indulgence into these matters, more facts about these former board members can be verified by a number of correspondences in your offices. Sir, you don’t what relief you offered UCAA by offloading the likes of Lumonya when in your letter you sacked her from the board. The above two working with Ruheesi and Kagoro had wanted to drive was the supply, installation and optimization of a Wide Area Multilateration (WAM) with automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) system for the Uganda Airspace. This project had been awarded to Indra by the contract Committee and the Lumonya and cohort frustrated this USD $8 million project despite its being a critical safety project. The reason is that Indra refused to meet them.
This contractor visited your predecessors. At this time the ministers Hon Azuba, Bagiire and yourself got to know that the board was so much involved in the procurement, particularly during the procurement of consultancy of services for design review and construction supervision for the upgrade and Expansion of Entebbe International Airport where she was fronting a company called Egis. This prompted the Minister to write to Attorney General seeking for an opinion on board’s involvement in procurements”.
It further continues “The AG noted that under section 31(1) (g) of the Act, the function of recommending procurement or disposal procedures is vested in the Procurement and Disposal Unit(PDU) while under sections 28(1)(d) and 29(a)(i) of the Act the power to approve the same is vested in the contracts Committee.
No such role is reserved for a Board of Directors or any analogous body. The Minister guided accordingly, but I can tell you that Lumonya insisted that the Board had to be involved. This delayed CAA project implementation greatly.
It was only until 31st January 2020, when the Minister wrote a strong letter and cautioned the Accounting officer to be personally answerable for any procurement delays if he continues to subject the procurements already awarded by Contracts Committee for Board Approval. All these were orchestrated by corruption”.
(Reported By Eagle Online)
