{UAH} Shs4b fraud scandal splits Uganda House - National - monitor.co.ug
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Shs4b fraud scandal splits Uganda House
Mr Mindra would not talk to us for this article, saying he was upcountry organising a function, whereas Mr Opio referred us to Mr Barungi, the board chairman, who he said would "best" explain everything.
In the report, Mr Okello-Okello's team writes that Mr Mindra told them that "he was directed to prepare the smuggled sections of the minutes for approval by the chairman (Barungi) and the chairman FATC (Opio) before insertion and signing."
"Regarding the changed minutes of the board meeting of July 18, 2013," the committee wrote, "Mr Mindra recalled that it was governor Chris Opio who directed that the name of Mr Mahmud Bharwani be replaced with Quick Colour Print Limited, as some members of the board who might access the minutes might not be comfortable with Mr Bharwani being the lender."
The committee further noted that on all the three occasions during which they met Mr Opio, he "flatly denied any knowledge of the smuggled contents of the minutes and also signing the resolutions of October 12, 2013."
On reclaiming the interest that was wrongly paid to Mr Bharwani, Mr Barungi said: "Since we repaid the loan before the expiry of the loan period, we are demanding from Mr Bharwani Shs 155,786,301, i.e. five months interest or 162 days to be exact ... which had been paid to him in advance."
However, this presents a contradiction on how much Mr Barungi says Mr Bharwani should refund to MOF and Shs843,228,984 the committee says he owes MOF.
Asked why it had taken over a year to reclaim the money from Mr Bharwani, Mr Barungi insisted: "We are taking steps to reclaim it. We wanted to first secure our land title from Mr Bharwani before we would pursue this money."
Mr Bharwani, who has offices on a building in Industrial Area which is owned by MOF, has a long history with the Foundation but some of the board members want the organisation to stop dealing with him.
One of the recommendations of the report says: "All efforts should be made to delink MOF and all its subsidiaries from Mr Bharwani and all companies and groups where he has interest."
When MOF's General Assembly sits on March 31, these issues are expected to take centre stage.
Founded in 1964, MOF was supposed to be the business wing of the Uganda Peoples Congress, which was then in power.
It owned companies and was to raise money to fund causes to uplift people's standards, especially with regard to education and health. Milton Obote, then leader of UPC and Uganda's executive prime minister, was the founding board chairman.
MOF was nationalised during Idi Amin's regime but later repossessed in 1980 and Obote continued to chair its board until his death, when his successor as UPC president, his wife Miria Obote, took on the duty of appointing members of the board.
Changes were later made to provide for elected board members, who serve two terms of three years each. The second term of the current seven board members, except one, expires this month and the Foundation's General Assembly has been called for March 31, 2015 to elect new board members.
MOF owns a number of property, including Uganda House, a warehouse in Industrial Area in Kampala, A plot in Buziga, and several other property. It is, according to UPC treasurer Peter Walubiri, UPC's biggest single funder.
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