MP named in Shs67m BAT bribery scandal

Bugangaizi West MP Kasirivu-Atwooki (L) and Buyaga West MP Barnabas Tinkasiimire share a light moment at a recent function. PHOTO BY FRANCIS MUGERWA

What you need to know:

On the spot. Mr Kasirivu-Atwooki reportedly took the money to doctor a House report that would undermine the tobacco firm’s rival.

Kampala. A Ugandan Member of Parliament took $20,000 (about Shs67 million) from British American Tobacco (BAT) company as an inducement to doctor a parliamentary report, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) claims.
BBC says Bugangaizi West MP Kasirivu-Atwooki took the money to undermine BAT’s rival, whom they did not name.


However, Mr Kasirivu-Atwooki yesterday dismissed the claim. “Committee reports are typed by clerks and then the entire committee goes through the draft,” he told Daily Monitor. He added that it is even “unimaginable” to give just one person $20,000.


Over the years, the MP said he has been mobilising farmers in his area to challenge Continental Tobacco, BAT’s perceived rival, over non-payment. Even during an interview with the BBC, Mr Kasirivu refuted the bribery accusations.
Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the State minister for Health, also said the charge is “baseless”. “Mr Atwooki was not a member of the Health committee. So he could not have influenced or altered the committee report,” Dr Baryomunsi, the Kinkiizi East MP who initiated the Tobacco Control Bill, 2014, said yesterday.

The origin
BBC based its charge on electronic mail correspondence and audio recordings by Mr Paul Hopkins, who had worked with BAT for 13 years. Mr Hopkins told the broadcaster he was BAT’s “commercial hit man” whose “job was to ensure the competition never got breathing space.”


He said though bribery would be shocking in the United Kingdom, which has strong anti–graft institulaws, BAT told him it is the “cost of doing business in Africa”.


Uganda’s Anti-Corruption Act, 2013, provides for the confiscation of the property acquired through corruption.
BAT is accused of bribing politicians to undermine the anti–smoking legislation, which it believed would severely impact on its business operations in East Africa.


It did this against the backdrop of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which had been encouraging UN member states to craft and implement policies that will check diseases such as lung cancer.
As a result, Uganda drafted, and in June this year, passed the Tobacco Control Act, 2014, to check the use of tobacco.
However, the tobacco industry argued that the law could drive tobacco companies out of business and deny government the Shs72 billion in taxes paid by BAT Uganda.


In Uganda, BAT faces competition from imported cigarettes and other tobacco leaf buying companies such as Continental Tobacco. The companies contract farmers, providing them with seedlings and fertilisers to cultivate tobacco for them.


They also set the price for the tobacco leaf. In some cases though, when farmers who believe the company that contracted them is offering them less, they opt to sell the leaf to their contractor’s rival.

THE BACKGROUND
In June this year, Mr Kasirivu–Atwooki led a group of 30 tobacco farmers from Bugangaizi to petition Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga about the woes. Mr Kasirivu–Atwooki proposed then that Continental Tobacco officials should be arrested. Ms Kadaga urged the farmers to sue the company.