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State Minister of Finance for Investments and Privatization, Hon. Evelyne Anite, has instructed Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) officials to return over Shs 500 million taken as ‘honoraria’ from funds designated for Namanve Industrial Park’s transport infrastructure construction.

The State Minister of Finance in charge of Investments and Privatization, Hon Evelyne Anite, has directed the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) officials to refund over Shs 500m received as ‘honoraria’ from funds earmarked for construction of transport infrastructure in Namanve Industrial Park. 

“The UIA Board of Directors should ensure that the following UIA staff and project management team members in the tables below who received the illegal honoraria on 23rd July 2023 from the project funds (loan), refund all the money within 24 hours from the receipt of this letter into the project’s account,” said Anite in a letter to UIA Board chairman, Morrison Rwakakamba on June 12, 2024.

“Failure to do so within the stipulated time frame, will attract dire consequences,” she added. 

The Government of Uganda on 4th December 2019 s e c u r e d E u r o 2 1 9, 4 8 2, 7 2 7. f r o m UK Export Finance (U K E F) for financing the development of infrastructure (design and build) at Kampala Industrial and Business Park, Namanve. 

According to UIA, from the commencement of the project, the Owner’s Engineer – the consortium of Roughton International Ltd., Turner and Townsend International Ltd., Joadah Consult Ltd., and Basic Group Ltd. failed to adequately supervise the project, therefore delaying in the clearance of studies and designs that were critical to commencement of the construction phase in May 2021.

The authority also cited a delay in providing instructions critical for project implementation and subsequently, due to these failures, it terminated their contract on 29th August 2022 and replaced them with its in-house team to supervise the project. 

Drama started unfolding when the contractor Lagan Dott wrote to UIA Executive Director, Robert Mukiza, seeking guidance to enable payment of the Project Management Team (PMT) and tax implications for payments made to date.

The contractor further wrote to Finance Minister Matia Kasaija and Anite, among others, making reference to the payment already made to a selected section UIA staff and the project management team to a tune of Shs 545,497,331 (Shs 280,421,36 and Shs 265,075,963 respectively), out of the Namanve Industrial Park Project Loan.

On April 30, 2024, UIA wrote to Lagan Ott, Namanve Limited requesting for payment of additional honoraria amounting to Shs 316,696,422 to some selected members of UIA staff and the project management team again out of the project loan sum.

“I find the above despicable, uncouth, barbaric and uncultured that people who have been tasked with the responsibility of delivering such a project within 5 years not only have they underperformed but also they are busy chest thumping and dishing to themselves huge sums of the project loan,” said Anite. 

“All these tantamount to mischarge, abuse and corruption at the expense of taxpayers of Uganda.”

Anite said this project has taken five years yet the expected project completion time frame was by 5th January, 2024.

“To date, it’s only at 50% progress,” she emphasized.