By Andrew Irumba
Kampala: The battle of whether Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL) should be audited or not is still raging on and State minister for privatisation Evelyn Anite could have the last laugh.
The latest development is that High court has issued an order demanding that that Auditor General conducts an audit of UTL soon as possible and avail the creditors with the audit report.
The court order, which was issued on August 9th, 2019 by Justice Musa Sekaana, arose from case file number 226 of 2019, which Uganda Broadcasting Services (UBC), one of the telecom’s creditors, dragged UTL to court, seeking permission to conduct the audit, which has since been frustrated by several government officials.
In his ruling, Justice Sekaana stated thus;
“It is hereby ordered as follows;
1-That an Audit be carried out on Uganda Telecom Limited in Administration by the Auditor General within a period of Thirty (30) days from the date of this order.
2-That the Audit report should be presented/given to all the Creditors of the Company.
3-That this court shall give further directions and guidance when called upon.”
While commenting about the new development, Anite tweeted thus;
“I thank Justice Musa Sekaana for ruling affirming that my demand for Auditing UTL and Presidential Directive on the same. There is authority in this Country and no amount of maneuvers can defeat the right and cause for people of Uganda.”
Anite initiated the move to audit UTL a few months back, although her ambitions to achieve the same were thwarted by Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana, Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Gen. Kahinda Otafiire and Ministry of Finance Permanent Secretary Keith Muhakanizi. Anite also wanted to cause the firing of Twebaze Bemanya, the Administrator of UTL but that was frustrated too after his contract instead got renewed by the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) till beyond 2025. However, we now wait to see if the court order to audi UTL will be executed or not.
