Obey and Oloka’s wealth unearthed

KAMPALA

The Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Directorate (CIID) has concluded tracing assets belonging to Mr Christopher Obey, the interdicted principal accountant for pension in the Ministry of Public Service and his assistant Mr David Oloka in Kampala.
The investigations team on Thursday proceeded to their villages where a larger portion of property are believed to be located.

If Mr Obey’s wealth in Kampala is anything to go by, he could be among the richest Ugandans, having a number of companies and property in the city centre as well as the outskirts.

According to the titles and documents that were recovered, Mr Obey owns several companies where he holds majority shares followed by Mr Oloka. For example in Liaison Insurance, Mr Obey holds 60 per cent shares while Mr Oloka holds 40 per cent.

Mr Obey also reportedly owns a number of properties, including commercial buildings. It is alleged that he owns, Tweed Plaza which houses the High Court Civil Division, the Constitutional Court and the Court of Appeal. He was allegedly in the process of selling the building before he was arrested.

Mr Obey also owns Conrad Plaza which is located on Entebbe Road. He is alleged to have bought the property from Captain Roy this year at price of $9 million (Shs22.5 billion) of which he paid $6.5 million in cash and toped up with a $3.5 million loan from Eco Bank.
Police has written to the Ministry of Lands to halt dealing in 15 properties owned by Mr Obey.
Mr Oloka also reportedly has close to 68 properties, including a fleet of vehicles and a number of bank accounts but police is yet to ascertain their ownership given that Mr Oloka has been in a critical state suffering from hypertension.

Among Oloka’s properties is a piece of land in Malaba which URA is operating on, another in Busia, a number of buildings in Tororo and Malaba as well as shares in a number of companies owned by Mr Obey.

According to statements made by the two after a week of interrogation, a big portion of Mr Obey’s assets are in Lyatonde and those belonging to Mr Oloka are in Tororo and Malaba.
Police yesterday began the process of tracing for the assets in the different areas, including Luweero District, where Mr Obey was scheduled to complete a transaction for a piece of land on Monday, the day he was re-arrested.

Mr Obey, basing on his personal estimation, is valued at Shs300 billion, close to a third of Uganda’s annual budget. As part of the ongoing investigations into illicit accumulation of wealth by suspects in the pension scam that led to a loss of up to Shs169 billion paid to ghost pensioners, police on Thursday re-arrested Mr Isaac Ssentogo, the operation manager of Cairo International Bank and he is still in detention at the Special Intelligence Unit.

Crime of illicit accumulation of wealth is provided for under the Anti-Corruption Act Section 31 which mandates the IGG, DPP and police to prosecute any person whose wealth is not commensurate to his income and has a conviction of not more than 10 years if found guilty.

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