The General Post Office building on Kampala road is the focus of a bitter ownership row between Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL), which is under parliamentary investigation for mismanagement, and Posta Uganda.
The building under dispute is located on plot 35 Kampala road, next to Bank of Uganda. On January 25, the managing director of Posta Uganda, James Arinaitwe, told parliament’s select committee investigating mismanagement at UTL that the ownership dispute has dragged on for two years.
He said UTL wants the building split into two, so that part of it is controlled by the telecom company. Before privatisation in 1998, UTL and Posta Uganda were one company, Uganda Posts and Telecommunications, which, among other properties owned the General Post Office building.
According to Arinaitwe, after privatisation, Posta Uganda took over owner- ship of the General Post Office building while UTL took Telephone House, on the upper side, opposite Grand Imperial hotel.
“Two years ago, UTL laid claim on a part of the General Post Office building, saying the property allocated jointly should be shared in the middle, which to UTL that meant the General Post Office would be cut into two to give UTL a part of it and the land in between,” Arinaitwe told the committee on January 25.
“We objected but they argued that we are using more than half of that area; that we were encroaching on their entitlement, therefore we should pay rent, and they computed rent at $18 per square metre times the number of years we have been there [from 1998]. That included parking space and footpaths, and that alone was in excess of Shs 2bn,” he said.
Arinaitwe added that Posta Uganda objected to UTL’s claim because the government entity had never entered into any contractual agreement with the telecom company for rent regarding any part of the post office building.
“There was an attempt to resolve the dispute but when it reached a level where we could not agree, we forwarded this matter to the Privatisation Unit,” he said.
“We wrote to the minister for ICT [Frank Tumwebaze] because it’s where the authority of allocation came from, and held meetings chaired by the minister for Privatisation and Investments [Evelyn Anite] in August last year, but that did not resolve the issue and it was decided that we meet again early this year since we put in a request for a follow-up meeting but it hasn’t been resolved,” Arinaitwe said.
The committee observed that it had not seen any authority empowering Posta Uganda to take over the post office building and UTL, Telephone House. But Arinaitwe explained that the Privatisation Unit had suggested that, logically, Posta Uganda should continue using the post office building.
“The first time they said the post office building was occupying more space; so, we should cut it into half, I thought it was a joke because we had had a long meeting until [Stephen] Kaboyo [UTL board chairman] put it in writing to us [Posta Uganda]. Then we knew the meetings were not going to resolve anything. That is when matters escalated,” Arinaitwe said, adding:
“I found it very difficult [to take] that an officer could propose that a building constructed in the 1950s should now be cut into half to allow UTL to co-share just because the statutory instrument of 1998 didn’t specify ownership.”
UTL company secretary David Nambale on Wednesday told the committee that the meetings held to resolve the property dispute hadn’t yielded much.
“The contention is on measurement. Posta Uganda is taking a bigger portion than UTL. We have failed to reach consensus on the general post office,” he said.
Committee chairperson Phillip Okin Ojara said Posta Uganda could be suspicious of UTL’s intentions in demanding half of the building.
“There is a lot of asset- stripping and UTL is moving to sell off some properties. Posta Uganda may be suspicious of your deals,” Ojara noted.
The committee urged the minister to intervene to avoid an embarrassing court battle. Posta Uganda and UTL are also involved in a related row over properties in Mpigi and Tororo districts.
“In Mpigi, UTL erected a chain link cutting through the post office building,” Arinaitwe said, adding that in Tororo, there is an incomplete post office building which UTL claims is part of the Telephone house project.
In Lira, UTL has reportedly instructed the lands office to cancel Posta Uganda’s lease and the title it holds. Posta Uganda has strongly objected.
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