Museveni: I’ve not changed position on Basajjabalaba

Kampala

President Museveni has not changed his position in the controversial Shs142.6 billion compensation claim paid to city businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba, his office said yesterday.

Following our story in yesterday’s edition in which the President was reported to have made a U-turn, State House got back to us to clarify that in his February 3 letter to Public Accounts Committee Chairman Kassiano Wadri, Mr Museveni was only giving additional information to the committee, which came to his possession after he had met the MPs investigating the matter on December 23.

Mr Museveni, an aide said, wrote to PAC after meeting former Attorney General Khiddu Makubuya, former Finance Minister Syda Bbumba and Mr Basajjabalaba, who separately gave him new information, and he wanted to pass it on to the committee because the trio had claimed that the committee did not listen to them.

Mr Museveni has before consistently distanced himself from the Shs142.6 billion, saying he did not approve of the figure – he refers to as ‘scandalous and unacceptable”.
MPs are expected to finish writing their report this week.

Below is what Museveni wrote to PAC:-
“I am writing to inform you that since I last met the Committee, I have also met Dr. Khiddu Maubuya, Syda Bbumba once again and Basajjabalaba. I had not met Khiddu and Hassan Basajjabalaba before ever since the beginning of this controversy.

Dr Khiddu and Basajjababala, separately, told me something new that I had not heard before in connection with this issue. Basajjabalaba claimed that he had invested a lot of money in the markets before I terminated his contract which had been given to him the by City Council without taking into account the interests of the thousands of the market users.

Khiddu more or less said the same thing but in different words – that this was a fair deal and he stands by that. Of course, my initial reaction when, through intelligence, I heard of the figure of 142 billion shillings was that the figure was preposterous and outrageous. However, both Basajjabalaba and Khiddu Makubuya, separately, told me, after my meeting with the committee that this was a “fair” figure.

My question then was: “Did you give this information to the Committee(PAC)?” Their answer, separately, was that they had done so but that the committee was not listening to them attentively. That, however, is a matter of facts – nobody can change facts. They are either true or false.

By copy of this letter, I am informing the Auditor General because he is the one that has got the capacity to determine what could have been genuine expenditure by Basajjabalaba and what was not.

The Attorney General is working separately to see how we can recover any excess money from what Basajjabalaba should have got or if Basajjabalaba should have any compensation at all in light of the KPMG report that I was not aware of until my meeting with your committee. All these are questions of fact. There is no room for guess work.
This is all for the information to the Committee.”

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