Parliament should investigate Bududa issue - MP Nambeshe

Manjiya County MP John Baptist Nambeshe (NRM)

What you need to know:

Interview. Landslides hit Bududa District in October killing more than 30 people. Following the landslides, questions of what became of the Cabinet decision to relocate people from the high-risk areas despite even after setting aside Shs 24b arose. Sunday Monitor’s Solomon Arinaitwe talked to Manjiya County MP John Baptist Nambeshe (NRM) who is preparing a motion calling for a broad parliamentary inquiry into OPM’s handling of Bududa money.

What’s the intention of the motion you want to move?
The motion is meant to cure misappropriation of money by officials in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). There are officials who are suspected of misappropriating and abusing Shs24b that was meant for the emergency relocation and resettlement of the people of Bududa to safer places. In 2012, we had adopted a unanimous resolution to construct low-cost housing units in the urban and town centres which are in the relatively safe places.

That was after a 21-man Cabinet Sub-Committee led by the Deputy Prime Minister Gen Moses Ali who came to Bududa, conducted consultative meetings and a number of options was floated. We expected these to be similar to those in Tanzania. If the Shs24b, which I want Parliament to inquire into, was put to proper use, the deaths of last month would have been avoided.

This money was more than enough to relocate all those who were living in high-risk areas. People were willing to relocate. In the 21st century, you can’t relocate people panda gali style to wherever you would wish to relocate them. Talk of Bulambuli where OPM has a burning desire to relocate the people to, that land has a multiplicity of encumbrances.

One of them is that the land belongs to absentee owners who ran away from cattle rustlers and they have already petitioned the IGG and are also in court. There are reports by committees of Parliament that pin OPM officials and yet they are still in office. Shockingly, when there were landslides last month, the President came to Bududa and apologised on behalf of the officials who shared the Shs24b.
He, however, did not go ahead to fire them. We expected him to fire them and get persons passionate about helping the vulnerable people. These would then be in charge of managing the said Shs32b.

Do you have any evidence on the officials whom you want Parliament to investigate? Do you have any names?
The names notwithstanding, it is common knowledge that the OPM and the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees mismanaged the Shs 24b. They are the ones who superintended over the expenditure of that Shs 24b. They were in charge of the resettlement scheme. All those plans were implemented by the political players.

What are the prayers in your motion? What sanctions are you proposing if the envisaged inquiry finds wrongdoing on the part of OPM officials?
The prayers are: Parliament to constitute a Select Committee to investigate the abuse of the Shs24b, bring to book those who were responsible for that abuse, visit Kiryadongo which has been infiltrated by imposters and establish who the true IDPs are. We have to avoid being taken advantage of.

The imposters need to be flushed out and those who included them on the list of Bududa IDPs should be brought to book because this is also corruption of the highest order. How did they get to the list of Bududa IDPs? The people who were managing the IDPs were extorting money with some even paying Shs 500,000.
They left the genuine survivors of the 2010 landslides and after exhorting, they took even people all the way from Mbale. They knew all the fringe benefits that came with Kiryadongo land. The land is two and half acres and there are other fraudulent promises that had been promised like construction of permanent houses and getting monthly pay.

Government says it is setting aside another Shs32b for the resettlement of victims? Should it be channelled through OPM and if not, what are the alternatives?
The best way to ensure this money reaches the people is through a compensatory approach. That would be much easier.

How will that approach work?
It is a matter of computing the properties of the people. People have land, livestock etc. which can be valued and compensated.

When OPM appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recently, they said that relocation was partly delayed because the natives did not want to leave their Bududa land owing to cultural attachments. Does that make sense to you?
That is not true. To the contrary, people are willing to relocate and they would have actually relocated yesterday. It is that willingness that the OPM is sailing on to relocate them to Kiryadongo. They have even arrested people who were protesting the sale of their land. The people are willing and that is why OPM really wants to be seen to be implementing the relocation plan.

But we know that the motive is money and not the people. They have even been peddling lies that the leaders are advising people not to relocate, which is not true. More to that, people are being accused of not wishing to relocate and preferring to stay in those insecure places is not true.
They are saying that those of us who are in elective positions do not want people to relocate because of votes not knowing that fewer people are better to convince.

Why have the Bududa IDPs been reluctant to relocate?
There is no reluctance at all. People have been willing to move.