Museveni angry at Shs500b dam bribe

Kampala

President Museveni has accused some of his ministers of soliciting for a $200 million (Shs500b) bribes from a Chinese contractor that was destined to win a deal to construct the Karuma hydropower dam.

At a special Cabinet sitting at State House, Entebbe on Friday that resolved to uphold the recommendations of the Inspector General of Government on Karuma power project, Mr Museveni is reported to have strongly, without mentioning names, pointed fingers at some ministers to desist from failing government work by soliciting for bribes from contractors.

“My officials demanded for a bribe of $200million from a contractor but how do you expect him to build a dam? He will do shoddy work or inflate cost of the project,” President Museveni is quoted by a source that attended the meeting.
He added: “You remember when I was in Parliament, I talked about green flies that follow corpses but Anywar [Beatrice, Kitgum Woman MP] commenting, said that the flies were yellow. It looks like she was right; the flies seem to be yellow.”

The meeting discussed the fact that two clear groups had emerged within Cabinet, one defending China International and Electric Corp (CWE) and those against. But at the end of the day, Mr Museveni insisted that the matter should be left to the Chinese government to recommend another contractor to do the work.
The meeting also resolved that another Chinese contractor be sourced to construct the 600-megawatt Karuma hydropower project and work should start in July.
“Cabinet agreed that construction starts in July, but the work should not be done by CWE to avoid litigation,” a Cabinet source told this newspaper yesterday.

The government has already approached the Chinese government to either fully or partially fund the Shs6 trillion projects. The Inspector General of Government, Justice Irene Mulyagonja, had in a March report recommended that fresh procurement for a contractor be carried out by restricted international bidding.

The procurement process for a constructor for the Karuma hydropower plant that started in 2010 has been marred with allegations of corruption and influence peddling by politicians and powerful businessmen.
A series of court injunctions, investigation, court cancellations and a repetition of the technical evaluation processes have already led to a two-year procurement delay for the project.

In an interview with the Sunday Monitor, Attorney General Peter Nyombi yesterday confirmed the Cabinet resolution but said CWE had not been eliminated but just a victim of officials in Kampala “who want to use it to eat money.”

“The recommendation is to enter a bilateral arrangement with China. That means we leave it to China to endorse a company for Karuma construction,” Mr Nyombi said. The President reportedly accused the Energy minister Irene Muloni and her junior Simon D’ujanga of failing to supervise the procurement process.

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