Parliament

As the Chogm inquiry progresses, emerging details tell of a shocking scam surrounding a controversial car deal, where the government lost more than Shs3 billion due to the procurement of ‘faulty’ BMWs.

Saturday Monitor has reliably learnt that the country would have saved Shs3 billion, if the government had procured Chogm vehicles with agreed specifications.

It has emerged that some BMWs, supplied by M/S Europecar/ Motorcare, reportedly had run-out tyres and lacked spare ones.

“We lost money and those responsible are going to pay back,” Mr Nandala Mafabi, the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee investigating the Chogm expenditures said. “The Cabinet Chogm sub-committee knew what they were doing, they pressured technocrats to their advantage and we lost billions in the process.”   

No due diligence done
Appearing before the Committee on Tuesday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works, Mr Charles Muganzi said there was no due diligence done on the companies (especially Europecar/Motorcare) contracted to supply the vehicles leading to the supply of defective. 

“Mr Chairman, to be honest, we didn’t check these companies because we got them from the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA) list of suppliers,” Mr Muganzi said. “We thought everything was okay, otherwise, we would have done the due diligence of the suppliers.”

Pre-shipment inspection
The committee heard that no pre-shipment inspection was done, yet according to the terms and conditions of the contract, five members from the procuring entity were to visit the Germany- based BMW plant to inspect the process on the production of the vehicles in September 2007.

This newspaper  has learnt that on September 16, 2007, three unnamed government officials whose details are being investigated proceeded to Germany for verification and inspection exercise after an invitation from M/s Motorcare.

 However, the delegation never inspected the BMWs and the motorcycles for Chogm as prior arranged on claims that by the time they arrived in Germany, the vehicles were already on the way to Uganda—government thus wasted Shs14.5 million spent on air tickets and allowances for officials.   

“This is stealing and these three people whose details we are investigating must refund this money,” Pac member Mr Tom Kazibwe (Ntenjeru South) said. “This is the reason why this company ended up supplying fake BMWs and yet we had already spent about Shs15 million.”

The Auditor General, Mr John Muwanga said: “It’s surprising how the supplier made invitations, hotel bookings well knowing that the vehicles were not in the factory.  Indeed, even the two representatives from the supplier (Europecar and Motorcare) were part of the pre-inspection team.”

Although  it was claimed that the vehicles had already left the factory, the delegation, was not provided with the production details/data like orders, production runs, parts delivery to authenticate the production.

According to the AG, “BMW advised that the details would be contained in the airway bill for the consignment delivered to Uganda. This information was however not presented, casting doubt as to whether the vehicles were actually manufactured in Germany.”

For the BMW X3s it was established that the cars were actually manufactured by a plant in Austria contrary to agreed specifications in the contract which specified that the cars would be manufactured in Germany.

Questionable origin
A further scrutiny of the Airway bills reveals that the airport of departure was Aeroport International de Vatry Bp in France although it was stated that the country of departure was Denmark and the airway bills were issued by a company called Avient Aviation Harare Zimbabwe casting further doubts as to the origin of the vehicles.

Mr Muwanga said: “From the above it appears vehicles were never produced in Germany as claimed. In fact, a visit at the Website of the purported manufacturers has revealed that the company has never manufactured RHS BMWs for the last five years.”
 
In his response, Motorcare Sales Manager, Moses Banturaki has denied any wrongdoing saying the government was happy with the vehicles they supplied for Chogm. He has also denied reports that Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa is connected to Motorcare.