Africa-Press – Uganda. Trouble is brewing for the Clerk to Parliament after it emerged yesterday that his office may have fraudulently altered the record of a House resolution in order to help the troubled Atiak Sugar Factory receive a Shs108 billion cash injection from the government.
The issue came to light on Tuesday when Mr Muwanga Kivumbi (MP Butambala) accused the office of the clerk of distorting and misrepresenting a House decision.
Atiak stops sugar production
He said Mr Henry Yoweri Waiswa, the deputy clerk in charge of corporate affairs, changed a parliamentary resolution rejecting a supplementary budget request of Shs108 billion for the Atiak sugar project.
“The majority report recommended that the government should use the Shs108 billion for the acquisition of equity shares. Now, the resolution of this Parliament was communicated to the Ministry of Finance that we passed money for the purchase of equipment. That was a distortion of the recommendation of Parliament from the majority report which was adopted by the Parliament,” Mr Kivumbi said.
Two years ago, the Ministry of Finance had in November 2021 presented a broad supplementary budget request for more than Shs4 trillion to run the government. Embedded within the figures was Shs108 billion to buy equipment for the mechanisation of Atiak Sugar’s operations.
However, the House Budget Committee objected to this part of the request. It instead recommended that the money be spent on equity shares for the government in the sugar company, which advice MPs adopted.
But to the consternation of fellow MPs, Mr Kivumbi revealed that the Mr Waiswa instead wrote to finance indicating that Parliament had approved money to buy equipment. At the time, Mr Waiswa was sitting in for Mr Adolf Mwesige, the substantive Clerk to Parliament.
Mr Kivumbi said it was wrong for the clerk’s office to have, essentially, doctored what was approved by the House.
“Therefore, our position is the Shs108 billion to Atiak cannot be in the Appropriation Bill to be considered. That figure must be excluded and for those who spent this money, the law will take its course. The Ministry of Finance has been using the three percent rule and other provisions to undermine Parliament, now their day has come,” he said.
A noticeably unimpressed Budget committee chair, Mr Ignatius Wamakuyu Mudimi, backed the member from Butambala, laying the blame for the unprecedented switch at the feet of the clerk’s office.
“What was passed by the House was for the acquisition of equity, but when you look at the Bill, it is talking of mechanisation. Secondly, we saw correspondence between the Office of the Clerk and PSST Ministry of Finance communicating about mechanisation. So, it is the office of the clerk that changed the resolution,” he said.
Among steps in
With tempers flaring, Speaker Anita Among stepped in, promising MPs that she will take action.
“Honourable members of Parliament, I will handle this administratively. I am going to call Mr Waiswa who wrote the letter and I will report to this House,” she said.
An equally exasperated Mr Jonathan Odur (Erute County South) reminded colleagues that the executive arm of government has always either ignored or manipulated resolutions of Parliament, which he said is criminal and fraudulent.
“I know administratively you are going to handle this but it must be on record that a technical officer of Parliament cannot usurp the powers of Parliament and communicate something else,” he said.
He was joined by Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda (Kira Municipality) who demanded that the Attorney General tells members what the government paid for.
“Even if the communication from the clerk to Finance had issues, what we need to know is whether the process of acquiring equity is now complete,” he said.
It is at this point that Mr Mathias Mpuuga, the Leader of the Opposition, wondered how the government, a minority shareholder in the enterprise, has sunk in more than twice what the majority shareholder has put in.
Atiak Sugar Factory is a subsidiary of Horyal Investment Holding Company Limited (HIHC), reportedly owned by Ms Amina Moghe Hersi, a female Kenyan entrepreneur of Somali descent.
Mr Mpuuga said: “What I need to inform the House is that the government has so far invested Shs279 billion in Atiak Sugar and the majority shareholders have only injected Shs120 billion. They have 60 percent and the one who has invested more money has 40 percent shares. Will the attorney general inform the House how the Shs108 billion was characterised”.
Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka was at a loss, acknowledging that Parliament approved the acquisition of equity shares. He said he was not immediately sure what the government paid for.
“I request that you give the executive time to precisely [find out] and come back with requisite documentation to show that government actually acquired equity in this institution as per the resolution of this Parliament,” he said.
Officials from both the finance ministry and those from trade, industry, and cooperatives were not available to explain how the money was used.
Mr Mwesige and Mr Waiswa were also not available for comment. Ms Hersi, who is the chief executive officer at Atiak Sugar, did not respond to our calls. However, in an earlier response when the supplementary came up, she said the government must answer because it was the government, not her, who asked for the money.
Risks at Atiak
The much-hyped sugar enterprise has had run-ins with area politicians and locals in Acholi and Parliament from inception when locals refused to surrender their land for the project.
The government then used both force and divide-and-rule methods to compel people in Amuru District to surrender their land amid accusations that this was part of a land grab by shadowy figures in government. Later, issues of poor management popped up.
The Budget Committee has observed that the government through Uganda Development Corporation invested in HIHC, the parent company which owns the majority shares, through an equity acquisition of 40 percent for Shs80 billion and a shareholder’s loan worth Shs20.5 billion.
The committee was informed that while the factory started operations in October 2020, it almost immediately ran into trouble given the piecemeal approach to planning and implementation of the investment. Today, it sits idle.
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