When parliament yesterday officially began hearings into why and how 42 government officials earned themselves a Shs 6bn cash bonus for winning a tax arbitration case against an oil company, the probe team, the House committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) listed President Museveni among its witnesses.
The committee was asked to lead the investigation by Parliament through a resolution this month. Cosase is investigating the propriety of the Shs 6bn cash bonus to government officials who won a tax arbitration case between government and Heritage Oil and Gas.
In total, the victory bolstered the government purse by at least $400 million (Shs 1.4 trillion). Last week, at the urging of Mbarara Municipality MP, Michael Tusiime, through a motion, Parliament voted to investigate the bonus payments, christened the presidential handshake, amid strong opposition from government officials.
Tusiime, the mover of the motion, and shadow attorney general Wilfred Niwagaba (Ndorwa East), the seconder, were the first witnesses to testify before the committee yesterday.
Other witnesses lined up include; the commissioner general of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Doris Akol, governor Bank of Uganda Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, minister of Finance, Planning and Economic
Development Matia Kasaija and Keith Muhakanizi, the secretary to the Treasury. Others are Attorney General William Byaruhanga, Solicitor General Francis Atoke, Auditor General John Muwanga, Accountant General Lawrence Ssemakula, the Head of Public Service John Mitala, Director of Budget at the ministry of finance Kenneth Mugambe and Inspector General of Government (IGG) Irene Mulyagonja.
The committee will also get testimonies from the ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, Uganda Law Society, Uganda National NGO Forum, the Tax Appeals Tribunal, tax assessors and the general public. On the first day of its hearing, the committee’s chairperson Abdul Katuntu (Bugweri) announced all hearings will be open.
“No meeting will be held behind closed doors… that is the decision we [the committee] took that this is a public inquiry…,” Katuntu said.
MUSEVENI
Yesterday, Niwagaba told the probe committee that it was erroneous for President Museveni, who only last week strongly defended his approval of the payments, to channel the reward through the ministry of finance.
The move, Niwagaba said, was against the provisions of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). Quoting the Constitution and various sections of the PFMA and public service standing orders, which prohibit the award of monetary rewards, Niwagaba said that if the president wanted to financially-reward the public officials, he should have used his cash donations budget.
This it emerged yesterday, would be one of the issues the president is expected to address when he interfaces with the committee at a date yet to be fixed. Museveni authorized the payments after a May 17, 2015 meeting with some of the beneficiaries at his country home in Rwakitura, Kiruhura district.
The cash bonus, the probe heard yesterday, was disguised as a supplementary budget request for payment of salary enhancement arrears for “non-teaching staff” at URA.
This, according to Niwagaba, is tantamount to a breach of Section 20 of the PFMA, which requires a resolution of Parliament for the money to be reallocated from the requested budget item.
CORRUPT
In his testimony, Tusiime suggested that Akol, who is scheduled to appear before the committee today, should be charged under the Anti-corruption Act because she is on record for having solicited for the bonus payment from the president.
“The method through which the said reward was initiated by [Akol] raises serious issues and might be bordering on the offence of corruption. It should be noted that whereas the payment was termed as a reward, the fact that it was solicited by the recipients led by [Akol] meant that it had lost all the characteristics of a reward and became something else,” Tusiime said.
He also tabled various correspondences between Akol, the president and ministry of finance relating to the handshake including a letter in which she requested to be designated as the accounting officer for the bonus payments.
Citing the 2009 case in which the National Social Security (NSSF) won a Shs 60bn appeal case against Alcon international and the IGG authored an opinion against a cash reward to Patricia Mutesi who successfully argued the case, Tusiime said the presidential handshake demonstrated a case of double standards.
“When it came to this payment, the IGG’s opinion should, by implication, have meant that no cash payments could be made as was the case with Mutesi. This exposes double standards in the payment of the monetary rewards since the solicitor general, Mr Atoke Francis, who procured the IGG’s opinion [in 2009] is now a beneficiary of the [handshake],” Tusiime stated.
He also tabled a list of six URA staff who he said should have been paid too. The six are mainly tax assessors in the domestic tax department where Tusiime himself worked from 1997 to 2010.
sadabkk@observer.ug