As President’s Museveni’s affirmitive action on the ministers and other government offficials implicated in the Karamoja Iron Sheets still waits, there is growing impatience among Ugandans over the impending selective prosecution of the suspects involved in the mess.
However, David Mafabi, the senior presidential advisor (Special Duties) has told Ugandans that a planned action against ministers named in the Karamoja iron sheets scandal is in the offing, with possibly a Cabinet reshuffle looming on the horizon.
“[Mr Museveni] has been clear. He categorised it into political liability and criminal liability. What is clear is that he is not happy. He does not condone such practices. He has made a public statement, and we should wait. Beyond that would be speculation,” David Mafabi told local newspaper Monitor in an interview on Friday.
Political watchers yesterday agreed that the President should not soldier on with what is effectively a lame duck team, paralysed by panic and irretrievably discredited in the public eye.
He has promised “political action” against the suspect lot, but without precisely defining what he plans.
Informed speculation suggests that an unprecedented Cabinet reshuffle is on the cards, with Mr Museveni dumping whoever will be found guilty of corruption, including, but not limited to, conspiracy to defraud Uganda.
At the Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG), Dr Sarah Bireete, a noted pundit on political affairs, says it would be untenable for the President to continue running government with a publicly discredited Cabinet.
“I do not even know how he chairs Cabinet. The first action would have been for them to step aside to pave way for investigations. Those exonerated can come back to work,” Ms Bireete, who is executive director at the think tank, observed, noting that “he already has trust issues with the population”.
“He will completely lose credibility [if he does not take action],” she warned.
Dr Gerald Karyeija, an associate professor of Public Administration and dean of the School of Management Sciences at Uganda Management Institute, posited that his “prediction is that the Cabinet reshuffle will not be immediate, but most of the named ministers will be affected in a reshuffle”.
“The reshuffle may not be immediate because the President usually says he does not move on impulse until irrefutable evidence has been adduced.
He will want to show that he gave the ministers the opportunity to express themselves. The President is usually magnanimous to those who express remorse,” Dr Karyeija said.
More than a quarter of Cabinet faces possible litigation, or even jail time, for their involvement in the diversion of iron sheets meant for vulnerable people in Karamoja sub-region.
Mr Museveni denounced his ministers’ actions as theft, subversion and political corruption – all criminal actions under the law — when he wrote to the prime minister over the scandal on April 3.
Of 82 ministers, more than 20 have been named, along with other top officials. Thirty-plus MPs and several Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) are among the implicated.
That list is topped by Vice President Jessica Alupo, number two in the order of national protocol; Speaker of Parliament Anita Annet Among (head of the second arm of government) and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja (leader of government business in Parliament).
Potentially, these three could wind up in court on corruption charges – which would be a historic and unprecedented occurrence.
A number of ministers have freely acknowledged having received the iron sheets, saying they subsequently distributed the items to various causes in their respective constituencies – an action denounced by the President as political corruption as it suggested that by so doing they were bribing voters.
The wheels of justice are already spinning as the Director of Public Prosecutions combs through more files to establish culpability of suspects for possible prosecution.
Officials could be indicted and possibly incarcerated as with the ongoing case of Minister for Karamoja Affairs Mary Gorretti Kitutu, who was arrested on April 4, dragged to court and remanded to Luzira Maximum Security Prison two days later.
She was temporarily set free on bail yesterday.
Ms Kituti (the alleged originator of the whole scheme) has been charged with causing loss of public property and conspiracy to defraud.
In the April 3 letter, President Museveni departs from his June 2021 spirited defence of ministers when political watchers ridiculed the appointment of what came to be known as a “fishermen Cabinet.
The feeling then in some sections of the public was that Mr Museveni had taken a populist view in appointing persons of dubious credentials to Cabinet in the toxic post-election environment. For those who hold that position, the Karamoja scandal confirms their worst fears.
While he handed them over to the processes of the justice system in his April 3 letter, Mr Museveni also promised that he would take political action even as the law takes its course. The unspecified political action, political pundits and legal experts say, could be to fire them in a Cabinet reshuffle.
However, the President may have implicitly landed the ministers into a catch 22 situation when he directed that they either reimburse the cost of what they misappropriated or return physical iron sheets.
The serious, but not unspoken, consequence of returning the roofing material became apparent on Thursday as Speaker Among struggled to return 500 iron sheets. The police, who are carrying out criminal investigations into the scandal, are treating whatever is returned as an exhibit.
This presupposes that the items could be used as incontrovertible evidence to prove culpability in court.
So, while it provides some comfort to the intended beneficiaries of the Shs39 billion Karamoja Community Empowerment Programme, it is also a poisoned chalice for those accused – returning the goods essentially amounts to self-incrimination.
For now, Mr Wandera Ogalo, a respected constitutional lawyer and former MP, says: “The President has the free reign to appoint ministers and to dismiss ministers. He has the discretion whether he sees such a reason is valid enough either for a sacking or dismissal”.
His learned colleague, Mr Peter Walubiri, also says it is now up to the President.
Walubiri pointed out that no law bars a suspect or convict from holding a political office.
“The traditional civil servant, the day he/she is charged in court, is suspended from office. If convicted, you are dismissed, and sometimes barred from getting another job in the public service. But for political persons, the discretion remains with the President. Whether he wants a person jailed for five years to remain in Cabinet but not working is upon him,” Mr Walubiri, himself an equally accomplished constitutional lawyer, explained.
Recent history shows that Mr Museveni exercises this discretion either way.
He has dropped some implicated ministers before, while appointing even people convicted of corruption to Cabinet as was with Ms Alice Kaboyo (present state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister for Luweero Affairs). Ms Kaboyo was appointed minister in mid-2021.
In June 2012, the Anti-Corruption Court had convicted Ms Kaboyo after she pleaded guilty to corruption involving hundreds of millions of shillings meant for a public programme funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).
Accused along with three former Health minister Jim Muhwezi; his deputies Mike Mukula and Dr Alex Kamugisha, Kaboyo was convicted and fined Shs20 million after she pleaded guilty.
Kaboyo pleaded guilty to two counts of abuse of office and forging documents in the name of former Principal Private Secretary to the President, Amelia Kyambadde.
According to charges, Kaboyo accepted an advance of Shs524 million for GAVI advocacy conferences at a time when she had already resigned her position. At the time of the ruling, she was said to have refunded Shs250 million.
Magistrate Irene Akankwasa handed Ms Kaboyo a Shs5 million fine on each of the four counts or a prison term of two years on each count.
“This seemingly light sentence is justified because A4 now a convict has not wasted court’s time. In the case of default to pay the said sum, the convict will serve the sentences concurrently,” the magistrate ruled.
Under the Anti-Corruption Act an ex-convict is barred from public office until after 10 years.
The case of former State minister for Labour Herbert Kabafunzaki comes to mind too.
Mr Kafunzaki was convicted of corruption. It was proved in court that between April 6 and 8, 2017, Kabafunzaki directly solicited and accepted a bribe of Shs5 million from Hamid Muhammed, chairperson of Aya Group of Companies. The bribe was an inducement to clear Muhammad of sexual abuse allegations made by a former employee, Ms Jamila Opondo.
Anti-Corruption Court Judge Margaret Tibulya ordered Kabafunzaki to pay a fine of Shs10 million or serve a three-year jail term.
The court also barred Kabafunzaki from holding any public office for 10 years, and ordered him to forfeit Shs5 million he had deposited for his bail after he dodged court proceedings. The minister was subsequently sacked.
Former Vice President Gilbert Bukenya was in May 2011 sacked after he was indicted and briefly jailed in April that year on charges of alleged abuse of office and fraud related to the Commonwealth summit held in Kampala in 2007.
Mr Bukenya denied the charges which were later dropped because the government was named in a civil suit connected to the same corruption scandal, officials said.
He had been accused of profiting from a $3.9 million deal to supply luxury cars for dozens of Heads of State at the Commonwealth heads of government summit. He chaired the Cabinet team in charge of preparations for the event.
President Museveni sacked him as part of a cabinet reshuffle. Government critics said the charges were politically motivated, to eliminate Mr Bukenya as a political threat.
Today, some say Mr Museveni’s next course of action will either reinforce or dismiss the assertion that the President lacks political will to deal with corruption.
Mr Medard Sseggona, lawyer and MP for Busiro South, says the consequences of the iron sheets scandal are far reaching, given that it affects a big percentage of cabinet, and it would be foolhardy for the President to retain the ministers.
“Any intelligent President would retire the entire Cabinet, sieve out the rotten tomatoes. It is an embarrassment to the entire Cabinet, we do not know who is clean and who is not is,” Mr Ssegona, who is also member of the opposition National Unity Platform party, told Saturday Monitor.
But Mr Ogalo argues that while Mr Museveni has the discretion to fire, it is also incumbent upon the implicated individuals to step aside and spare the President such scrutiny.
“It would be difficult for the President to retain a minister who is convicted. You cannot hold a position when you are convicted. It is untenable. If a minister is involved in such, the best course is not to put the President on [the spot]. The minister should simply see that their position is not tenable and put in a resignation if he or she has some political responsibility,” Mr Ogalo says.
“The political culture we should try to [cultivate] is that a minister should stand aside, and not wait for the President.”
Now, historian and renowned political commentator, Prof Ndebesa Mwambutsya, says any lack of political action could de-legitimise the government.
“The solution to political corruption is not necessarily legal action, it is political. In effect, these people should have either resigned or the appointing authority drops them.”
“Do I envision a cabinet reshuffle? I do not know, but people have been asked to return the mabaati (iron sheets)… Once you use public resources for any political gain, that is corruption, which should be addressed by the government and the appointing authority,”
In other, more democratically sound polities, such a scandal have would attracted voluntary resignations and even fresh elections although Uganda’s Constitution does not envisage mid-term elections prompted by a crisis in government resulting from graft.
In the United Kingdom, former premier Boris Johnson stepped down in July last year following multiple scandals related to breaches of Covid lockdown protocols. More than 50 ministers and senior government aides also resigned.
The Speaker’s fate
Mr Sseggona yesterday explained that the fate of the Speaker of Parliament, whom the President cannot directly fire because of the independence of the institution, lies with MPs.
“Even if she is charged, she remains Speaker if she has not been convicted… In the event that she is charged, she will apply for bail and continue presiding over the House… unless we the electorate think she should be removed. If she is convicted, she loses office.”
Rule 108(1) of Parliament’s rules of procedure lays out the process of removing a Speaker or the deputy. A two-thirds majority of all voting Members of Parliament must vote in support of a motion to remove, and at that point the Speaker or Deputy Speaker shall cease to hold office.
Mr Chris Obore, director for communication and public affairs at Parliament, said: “I don’t see the Speaker being charged because she isn’t culpable. Anything else is speculation which I cannot give validation.”
Due to legal technicalities, Mr Sseggona said Ms Among’s returning of the 500 pieces of iron sheets could yet shield her from the offence of theft which presupposes that one aimed to permanently deprive another party.
“Politically, she can be indicted, but legally it becomes difficult,” Mr Sseggona he said
Either way, the political football is firmly at President Museveni’s feet as many Ugandans anxiously await his political action against the ministers.
Those who stepped down
In 2011, then ministers Sam Kutesa (Foreign Affairs), Mwesigwa Rukutana (Labour), and the government chief whip, John Nasasira, stepped aside to clear their names in court following accusations of abuse of office and causing financial loss related to the 2007 Commonwealth summit.
In the same year, then Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, Mr Kutesa and former Energy Minister Hilary Onek were asked to step aside by resolution of Parliament following allegations of mismanagement and bribery in the oil sector.
Ms Kabakumba Labwoni Masiko resigned as Presidency minister in December 2011.
It was alleged that three years earlier, when she was minister for Information, Ms Kabakumba’s Kings Broadcasting Services radio station was found in possession of stolen transmission equipment belonging to the government-owned Uganda Broadcasting Corporation.
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