By Hanning Mbabazi
Kampala: The State Minister for Investment, Evelyn Anite has written to President Museveni over the ongoing differences onto the struggling Uganda Telecom Limited. In the Minister’s letter dated June 29, she urgues that although she gave adirective to the Attorney General to take action over the replacement of Bemanya Twebaze as Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL) administrator, the same has not been put to action.
Anite expressed her grievances to the President where she said that refusal by Bemanya to vacate office as directed is against the noble cause of reviving the telecom company. She added that it was wrong for the Attorney General to support the refusal.
“Your excellency, whereas government is enjoined to follow the advice of the Attorney General, we are disturbed that his conclusions on this matter raise more questions and especially contradict the policy guidance I received from you regarding the removal of Mr.Bemanya,”. Reads part of Anite’s letter to the President.
“The purpose of this letter your excellency is to bring the above developments to your attention and to seek for your further guidance considering that I am convinced that the opinion of the Deputy Attorney General is fundamentally flawed and misinterpretation of the law.” She added explaining how Government had lost confidence in Bemanya.
The UTL saga started over a week ago when Anite as the line minister in charge of privatization revealed that she met with Attorney General William Byaruhanga, Finance Minister Matia Kasaija and Secretary to Treasury Keith Muhakanizi to forge a way forward on how to get accountability from UTL administrator.
She said that in January this year, the Finance Minister wrote a letter to the Auditor General John Muwanga demanding an audit to be carried out on UTL having gone under administration.
According to Anite, the AG wrote back saying that he could not audit the company because it was a court led process. Anite also explained how the Taleology Holdings GIB Ltd was awarded the contract in October 2018 to manage UTL over the State-founded Mauritius Telecom which had financial capability and muscle to run the company. She said that contracting Taleology was based on its higher proposal to invest in the company. She said that for not having money to invest in UTL, Taleology technically left shortly after it had been contracted but what is perturbing government is that it does not know the status of the company and how it is operating.
In her letter dated June 26, Anite directed William Byaruhanga to get immediate replacement for Bemanya, saying all the concerned parties have lost confidence in him as administrator and therefore, can no longer work with him. However, in response the deputy Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana blasted Anite saying she has not supervisory powers over the UTL administrator. “Whereas some government entities may be listed creditors, they have separate legal status. Accordingly, a shareholder in this instance, the Minister of Finance Planning and Economic Development has no locus to apply to the court to remove the administrator from office,” Rukutana said in a letter dated June 28.
