Budadiri West MP Nathan Nandala-Mafabi has lashed out at Uganda Telecom Limited (Utl) for mismanagement.
Mafabi made these revelations last week while appearing before a probe committee that is investigating the financial malaise in the telecom company. This, he said, includes irregular transactions and sale of some of its properties and land, staff harassment and fraud.
Government owns a 31 per cent stake in Utl while Libya African Portfolio Green owns 69 per cent shares. The committee, chaired by Okin Ojara, comprises Michael Tusiime, William Nzoghu, Paula Turyahikayo, Lillian Nakate and Thomas Tayebwa.
Mafabi further stated that Utl is “bleeding financially in local and foreign debts to a tune of Shs 670 billion, with no audit done for the last four years.”
He said without audits of company accounts and assets, it took long to detect fraud that went on for years where petty cash to the tune of more than Shs 1.5 billion also vanished.
He also claimed that Utl’s recently-authorized installation of a superfast high capacity internet link has the ability to tap President Museveni’s phone calls.
“It should be noted that such capacity would enable the user with system passwords to do anything with the Utl network including tapping the calls of His Excellency the president and other security agencies,” Mafabi said.
Mafabi told the MPs that there is need for Utl managing director, Mark Shoebridge, to explain what the superfast connection, whose installation he authorized, is being used for. The MP claimed Utl management is using bank access rights of former staff to make payments, some of which are highly-questionable.
“For instance on December 6, 2016, Shs 50m was paid to URA purportedly signed by John Sendikaddiwa, almost a month after he left the company,” Mafabi told the committee.
Last month, parliament imposed a travel ban on Utl’s top management pending investigations but the committee noted that some of the banned managers continue to travel out of the country.
According Mafabi, since he exposed the mismanagement of Utl, Shoebridge has fired those he believes are responsible for leaking the information.
“Some of the staff who have left include John Sendikaddiwa, Charles Wanume, John Magala and Godfrey Kisekka (who was the acting MD before Shoebridge took over),” Mafabi said. “It is therefore my recommendation that the acts going on in Utl, including the wanton victimization of staff, is stopped with immediate effect.”
The committee said the top managers who include Shoebridge, company secretary David Nambale, James Wilde, the chief finance officer; Emmanuel Kasule, the chief human resource officer and Ameer Kamal Arif, the chief commercial officer, be investigated.
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