By Spy Uganda
Kampala: As we earlier this week reported about the unfortunate arrest of a Pan-African returnee from Dubai, Ategeka Peter Kamuhanda, and his colleague Kulumba Godfrey at the Tanzania-Uganda Mutukula border over failure to raise the now mandatory shs240,500 COVID-19 testing fee, private quarantine fees at Mutukula and a police bribe of shs200,000, Pan-Africanists in Uganda under their umbrella Pan African Pyramid (PAP) are now planning to storm visit them and camp at Kyotera police where they’re currently being detained, after they were transfered on Friday afternoon.
In a statement seen by this website, the Pan African Pyramid Founding Speaker and Chairman Andrew Irumba Katusabe has strongly condemned Ugandan security authorities for turning COVID-19 pandemic into a money minting venture at the plight of suffering poor citizens.
Vedio: Pan-Africanist Ategeka Narrating His Plight
I’m told they’ve since found all manner of allegations to ensure they torture him there. I’m requesting our fellow Pan-African Pyramid lawyers and Human Rights Activists there like comrades Jude Mbabaali, Mukasa Fred Mbidde Esq, Kato Mukasa among other colleagues that side of Kyotera Masaka to come to his rescue as we travel from Kampala this Monday.
We’re reliably informed that they’ve managed to slap him with all sorts of frivolous charges just to cow him own. We’re Pan-Africanists, we don’t condone corruption. He chose to return to his country than to rot in jail in Dubai,no offense.
The background is simple: Dubai Gov’t gave amnesty of few days to all those whose visas had expired during COVID-19 to leave country or be jailed. Kamuhanda and other Ugandans had spent over 5 months without working due to COVID-19. He had no money left on him and no job anymore.
The available flights are landing in TZ since Entebbe is closed. He even had no money for the flight, we had to mobilize as friends here in Kampala. After landing in TZ, he came by road to Mutukula where he was arrested with another young man, Godfrey Kulumba. Security wanted them to pay shs481,000 each for two tests, sleep in their expensive hotels turned quarantine centers for 14 days and pay a bribe of shs200,000/- to security, which they didn’t have.
They asked to be quarantined in public quarantines which security refused and decided to jail them instead. But in jail they’re more exposed to COVID19 since they are many.
I’m told on Monday they plan to take them to court and thereafter to prison. They’ve been in police custody for a week, no eating,no drinking.
Ategeka is a pioneer member of Pan-African Pyramid who has been working in Dubai till COVID-19 crashed everything. We’ve a covenant as PAP members to discourage corruption and other forms of impunity, forgive him, that’s his weakness.”
Genesis Of The Matter.
Days after implementation of the COVID-19 testing charges, TheSpy Uganda investigative reporters at Tanzania-Uganda Mutukula border discovered that immigration authorities and Police in-coordination with some ministry of health officials were already minting money from troubled Ugandans coming from abroad via Tanzania airlines since Entebbe airport is still closed, whom they test and force into their designated quarantine centers at the border.
“It is now very hard to test a person and they tell him/her that he is negative since more positives is their source of money that they generate by camping both negative and positive patients since they mind about filling their quarantine centres for money not people’s lives” a source at the border said.
Our investigators also established that since it’s now mandatory for all entrants to pay shs240,500 for the first test and wait for 14 days while sleeping in the officials’ owned hotels that are designated at the borders, Mutukula, Kabale and other bordering districts, after spending a fortnight, police with MoH officials squeeze patients again to pay another 240,500 to confirm whether they are still positive or turned negative, which is alleged that before their quarantine centers are full, they can’t let any patient go. In other words, it’s no longer shs240,500 but shs481,000, since you have to pay twice, a thing that has complicated the whole exercise further.
Our investigators also learnt that Police are extracting a lot of money at a bonanza pace targeting mostly a group of Ugandans coming from UAE countries who dock in Tanzania and decide to use land transport into Uganda over Entebbe’s closure.
“In their target, they believe that Ugandans from UAE have a lot of money and therefore when they tell you to pay and you refuse, they get other means to torture you till you pay them both the COVID-19 fee or their bribe and they let you go immediately even if you are positive,” a source said at the border.
How Pan-Africanist Ategeka Peter Kamuhanda & Kulumba Godfrey Torture came to limelight?
It was through our investigations, that we landed on woundy, bloody Kulumba Godfrey and Ategeka Kamuhanda who came from Dubai via TZ. On arrival at Mutukula, was first arrested, detained for two days, robbed off their properties that included personal belongings like phones among others allegedly by the Police officers who received them and later bunched them into Mutukula Police post on charges of ‘illegal’ entry into the country and inciting violence but in real sense according to our sources, were arrested because of failure to pay for their private quarantine centres and bribe.
Mr Ategeka told our reporter, “I’m a Pan-Africanist, I don’t believe in a corrupt society and can never participate in corruption,” Ategeka reportedly told off one of the security operatives who then turned violent to him and his colleague and were slapped with frivolous charges and detained. Kamuhanda is a pioneer member of Pan-African pyramid-Uganda chapter and was returning from UAE to renew his visa in Kampala.
Few minutes after noting Ategeka’s pain he was going through over Government’s servants, our investigator was alerted that there is another victim known as Kulumba Godfrey who was brutalized and beaten by police over the same scenario of refusing to pay police bribe since he was also a Dubai returnee whom they suspected to have all the money they needed.
“I also came from Dubai last week, when i reached at the border, police with MoH officials told me to pay the shs200,000 ‘kickback’ and later pay 240,500 COVID-19 testing fee which i didn’t have and to them it sounded as if I have refused intentionally. They tortured me to near death and later dropped me here at Mutukula police post and opened charges against me of inciting violence and illegal entry into the country” Kulumba confessed.
However Kulumba said, after several days in detention he was surprised to be accused by the same police that it’s him instead who beat them up to pulp. Meanwhile, as he was still explaining the torture he has passed through to our investigative reporter, one of the police officers arrived to check whether he had accepted to pay at least the ‘special’ shs200,000 which is the ‘officer’s fee’ (police bosses manning the border), or not so he would see whether to let him off the hook.
Despite the ministry of health’s spokesperson explanation to our investigative reporter that it is not mandatory to be taken into a private quarantine centre since they understand that there are those who can not afford such charges, hence a reason they reserved public centres meant to be used by such categories of people, Mr Ategeka and Kulumba say when they explained to the immigration officers that they had no money for their forceful quarantine and requested to be taken to Entebbe public quarantine centres, corrupt, unscrupulous and greedy police officers got more anger and that was the beginning of all sorts of torture against them which they are still going through at Kyotera Police station where they have been transferred from Mutukula police post.
Watch the space…..!
