Akena, MOF fight for Uganda House persists

KAMPALA.

Uganda Peoples Congress faction led by Lira Municipality MP James Akena has asked the party’s financial arm, Milton Obote Foundation (MOF), to vacate Uganda House for alleged breaching a consent agreement.

The consent agreement signed in May 2009 indicates that MOF was set up by UPC and the duo developed a relationship under which they supported each other.

It says MOF shall in all operations and management of its affairs preserve this relationship.

Talking to Saturday Monitor yesterday, the secretary general of the Akena faction, Mr Edward Segganyi, said MOF should vacate Uganda House because their current leadership has continually disregarded the consent agreement signed between the two parties.

“The bad faith in regard to the agreement continuously shown by MOF is aimed at crippling the party in order to enable the group that has hijacked MOF deplete the assets that belong to the party and in the end to misappropriate the remaining properties, Uganda House being the ultimate prize,” Mr Segganyi said.

Mr Segganyi added that they had never held a meeting with MOF since they started operating in Uganda House as the new leadership.
He said MOF has never funded them either, as it is obliged in the party constitution.

Since May last year, there has been several calls and court cases from both MOF and outgoing party president Olara Otunnu’s group challenging Mr Akena’s faction for occupying the UPC headquarters Uganda House illegally.

In June last year, Mr Akena organised a delegates conference that elected him party president and occupied Uganda House.
However, in December the High Court declared Akena’s election a nullity and his leadership illegal.

Mr Akena’s faction refused to vacate the party headquarters at Uganda House claiming the building belongs to the party.
However talking to Saturday Monitor, lawyer Peter Walubiri, the chairman of the Milton Obote Foundation, said Mr Akena has no right to make decisions regarding Uganda House because the building belongs to MOF, not UPC.

“Mr Akena should stop making idle statements. Let him continue working with President Museveni instead of pretending that he is still a UPC member,” Mr Walubiri said.

On Monday, MOF sued Akena’s faction again for what they called the “most bizarre and ridiculous grounds” that the party had breached the said consent agreement by hoisting the UPC flag outside Uganda House and returning the foundation stone outside the party headquarters.

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