KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Ms Betty Amongi has revealed that she blocked the fraudulent purchase of land in Nakigalala by the National Social Security Fund due to variance in costs.
Amongi while defending herself before parliament yesterday said that the Fund had requested 400 billion Shillings while the government valuer had estimated the cost at 246.1 billion Shillings.
NSSF prob investigation reports suggested that minister Betty Amongi would resign from office for regularity and misuse of office. Committee made its rolling relying on the 6 billion which wasn’t realized according to minister Amongi.
The land in question measuring 400 hectares is owned by the Muljibhai Madhvani family and is located along the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway. Reports indicate that Madhvani has been trying to sell the tea estate to NSSF for three years now.
According to the minister, she got to know about the land in the NSSF budget for the current financial year 2022/2023, when she was asked to approve a block figure of 400 billion which she declined.
Amongi said she could not approve the purchase after the NSSF management failed to provide her with a due diligence report, land title, and other documents. The Minister pointed at the former Managing Director, Richard Byarugaba who claimed that the NSSF Board and the Minister of Finance had approved the project, which was not true.
Among also revealed that she rejected a proposal from the Board to allocate US Dollars 1 million for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to construct a Judiciary court.
“I told them that I will not approve CSR to construct the Judiciary house which is already being constructed. I advised them to use that money to boost savings groups of low-salary earners. I told them if you want me to approve, go and negotiate for construction of industrial court which hears workers’ cases,” the Minister said.
“It is interesting to learn that I Betty Amongi the minister of gender saved 400 billion of NSSF money from going to the wrong hands but the selected committee spent weeks trying to get reasons to incriminate me because of 6Bn which never was even released to me”- Amongi tells the house.
The Finance Minister Matia Kasaija while appearing before the NSSF prob selected committee said that he last heard about the land in Nakigalala four years ago when Madvani informed them at State House that he had land to sell.
According to Kasaija, he then directed NSSF to carry out due diligence into the matter.
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