{UAH} Museveni’s chief driver speaks out after prison-that is how they pay back,the greedy people
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NATIONAL
Museveni's chief driver speaks out after prison
Godfrey Kisembo drives Pope John Paul II during his visit to Uganda in 1993. Inset is Kisembo today.
Posted Sunday, November 3 2013 at 00:00
IN SUMMARY
He enjoyed his work, felt good chauffeuring the head of state, but Kisembo found himself in jail and now he sits in an office without work.
For Godfrey Kisembo, 53, rising from a ragtag footballer to a State House driver, was a breakthrough in life. And becoming President Museveni's chief chauffeur for 17 years was the icing on the cake.
But while many Ugandans pray for an opportunity to shake the President's hand and perhaps shake off poverty with its associated misery, Mr Kisembo's 17-year close association with President Museveni did not save him a stint at Luzira prison.
Now he is struggling to see the President and to get his life back on track.
Apparently, he failed to pay a Shs20 million debt after a land deal gone bad. Mr Kisembo says while busy with State duties, he bought land without seeing its size but after using surveyors to check the land, he found he had been sold less area than he had been told and for which he paid.
He tried to decline paying the balance of the money but lost the case and failure to pay legal costs landed him in prison. His problems came in droves. A house for his family was sold to a bank without his knowledge using forged transfer forms and signature; and the bank wants his family out. That is a story in itself. But what does Kisembo say?
"I drove the President from 1987 to 2005. I was appointed chief chauffer after Mutabazi [the chief chauffer] ran away. He is in America; he got little money and left," said Mr Kisembo.
In 2005, Mr Kisembo says, the President ordered that he gets deployed as a head driver with an office at Okello House where he sits to date. "But I am useless. They didn't give me an appointment letter…up to now I don't have an appointment letter," he said in a soft but terse voice: "When I ask they say you will get it…you will get it; up to now!"
'In things'
Mr Kisembo, who is out of prison on medical grounds, said he accepted to give Sunday Monitor this interview because his 17-year association with President Museveni and his continued visits to State House created a perception that he was still "in things" as Ugandans would love to say, yet he was battling challenges some of which arose from his dedicated service to the President.
"People who see me think I have money. I was put in Luzira [prison] because they thought the President would pay for me. Some think I am a spy for the President," Mr Kisembo said.
He added: "I still earn the same salary of Shs200,000 per month like any other driver and Shs400,000 as monthly allowance," he said. "They gave me a desk at Okello House but I sit there as a picture; they say that is the boss…that is the boss yet I don't know anything going on, I don't deploy any driver."
"I am there but I don't know my work, I have been jobless since 2005. I left and went home but in 2008, they called me that they had given me an office which is only a table."
Was moving from chief chauffer to head driver a promotion or demotion? "I don't know," Mr Kisembo said, adding: "One day, he [Museveni] called me saying 'Kisembo, why are you complaining about allowances?'"
According to Mr Kisembo, it was a good job driving the President but it had no money, forcing him to bargain for better terms. "I tried to complain sometimes even to the President but he began calling me 'Afande Allowance'; he became scared because I wanted money."
Mr Kisembo says his complaint arose from the scrapping of daily allowance that drivers earned when on safari. It was later consolidated to a monthly allowance of Shs400,000 from Shs208,000 a night for chief chauffer and Shs120,000 per night for junior drivers.
In addition, Mr Kisembo said Mr Museveni paid him Shs48,000 per week as honorarium and 60 litres of fuel, all of which were scrapped.
They said it was too much money and they removed it; it was shocking to drivers," Mr Kisembo says and added that as the one closer to the fountain of honor then, he voiced the concerns of other drivers. But that did not please the President.
"I continued with my job which I did well but whenever he [President] wanted to stop, he would say 'Afande Allowance, you stop…Afande Allowance don't knock my people…Afande Allowance let me greet my people."
Apparently, Mr Kisembo's fight for improved pay started in 1994 when he offered to resign. In a letter to the Principal Private Secretary to the President, he gave three reasons for his resignation: "The salary and allowances I am getting are not enough to maintain me and my big family; I wish to seek better employment from somewhere else [sic] and my family has no accommodation at present as you know the recent earthquake in Fort Portal spoiled my house."
Resignation
He added: "…I am kindly asking you to accept my resignation and to give me recommendation to enable me look for another employment somewhere else."
The resignation was not accepted.
In 1997, he wrote another letter to the State House Comptroller raising questions why he was not being paid allowances entitled to him and yet others were getting it.
Mr Kisembo said since he stopped being a presidential chauffeur in 2005, he has never met the President and does not know whether he is the one disinterested in his service or it is the State House staffers deliberately blocking him.
"I have written two letters and tried many times to meet the President but up to now, I have failed," he said.
Frustrated by not seeing the man he chauffeured for nearly two decades, Mr Kisembo tried other family members whose errands he also ran then.
"I tried Muhoozi [Kainerugaba] and saw him. He promised to give me some money but it took another one year to see him. When I saw him, he said 'right now I don't have money.' I decided to leave him alone."
Seeking Muhoozi's help
Brig Muhoozi is President Museveni's son and commander of Special Forces Group that takes care of the President's security detail. "I drove those children and they were all good mannered; I thought they would still remember me," Mr Kisembo remarked.
After failing to get help from Brig Muhoozi, Mr Kisembo said he tried to reach the First Lady but he failed.
When asked why he didn't try other family members, Mr Kisembo said: "But the girls are now married and it's not good to disturb them in their homes. I went to Muhoozi because he is a man like me," he said.
Mr Kisembo feels betrayed because he committed himself to work but he is ending on a sad note.
"I was on safari every day and my wife was taken by another man," he said: "Sometime I went to the north with the President and we spent more than two months. When I returned home, I found my wife pregnant and she decided to run away," he said.
He does not blame the wife. "My job always kept me away from home. We were only two drivers then unlike today when the President has seven; five soldiers and two civilians."
He said due to the hectic nature of the job with low motivation, other drivers ran away. "I deployed someone to drive the President to his farm in Kisozi and the driver warned me that 'if you deploy me to go there, I will run away'. I forced him but the man resigned. He was called William Kizito. He died some years later."
Mr Kisembo said while chauffeuring the President, he had no connection with the world outside State House and many things happened to his family and social connections.
"I tried to get State House scholarship for my children but failed and I had to use loans when others were getting [the scholarship]. The President gives other people money but for me, I don't know why; I think it's bad luck."
When told he still has a job, Mr Kisembo. "I just go there to sit; I have no appointment letter and no work," he said.
So what does Mr Kisembo want?
"I want to see the President first," Mr Kisembo said before Sunday Monitor asks again: Won't you put yourself in trouble? And the answer was: "If they dismiss me then I have nothing to do. I have asked for help and they have all dodged me; I will go and dig, knowing that I tried all ways. When I die, they will say he was a good man; he was hardworking man yet they have left me in trouble."
His lawyer Muzamil Bikanga said Mr Kisembo is facing hardship. "I think we have decided to treat it as a just cause. We are even thinking of writing to the Vatican begging them to assist this man because he is proud of having driven the Pope," Mr Bikanga said.
But State House spokesman Tamale Mirundi said: "Kisembo's problem is that he is facing a civil case and was recently in prison and those demanding money [from him] are threatening to put him back to Luzira."
Mr Mirundi added that if Mr Kisembo did not raise his issues when he was driving the President, then he should not be raising them now. "To say I was a driver so as to get automatic access to the President is wrong but on humanitarian grounds, he can be helped."
Mr Mirundi said State House employs more than 1,000 people therefore "if we all go to the President, where will money come from?"
On the issue of working without appointment letter, Mr Mirundi said it was a matter that Mr Kisembo should pursue.
"How security could vet him and entrust him with the life of the President and now he is not appointed. Maybe he did something wrong," Mr Mirundi said.
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Kisembo's recollections of chauffeuring leaders
The Pope
My best time was when I was chosen to chauffer His Holiness Pope John Paul II when he visited Uganda in 1993. As the presidential chief chauffer, I was the one trusted to drive the Pope for the six days he was in the country. He gave me a rosary which I wear daily up to today.
I don't know whether the rosary will help me through these tough times or not. There is nothing else I could get from the Pope other than the blessings he gave me. I remember his private secretary gave me $50.
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