Army investigate Kulaigye over gold deal

Kampala. The army yesterday commenced investigations against its Chief Political Commissar, Col Felix Kulaigye, who is caught up in the middle of a gold transaction gone sour.
“We are certainly interested in the issue and we are going to independently investigate the matter. The UPDF doesn’t condone wrong behaviour and we sure shall find out the truth and if he’s involved,” army spokesperson, Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, told this newspaper yesterday.

The police had yesterday commenced separate investigations into a gold transaction, recording statements of all parties in the equation.
The police also said it has started a manhunt for an unidentified Congolese national who was vending gold to Col Kulaigye’s niece, a one Brenda Murungi, before the treasured mineral mysteriously turned into pavers last week after it had been tested and its purity confirmed.

The matter had been drawn to the attention of Col Kulaigye’s superiors in the military, including the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Katumba Wamala, with Mr Richard Kamugisha, the managing director of Matrich Holdings Limited, the company at the centre of the controversy accusing him of ransacking his office and harassing his staff on Friday last week.
Speaking to Daily Monitor yesterday, deputy police spokesperson in charge of Kampala Metropolitan Patrick Onyango said the three employees of Matrich Holdings who were booked into Central Police Station in Kampala, “are on holding charge of obtaining money by false pretence and are recording statements. We are going to record statements from all parties involved in this”.

To record statement
Asked if the army MP would also record a statement, he said: “Was Kulaigye involved in the deal? Yes. So he will also record a statement although he was not at the scene, he was at Ntinda Police Station and only his assistant was at the scene.”
Ironically Col Kulaigye confirmed to this newspaper when his niece contacted him on Friday reporting the gold theft, he only dashed to the Ntinda-based office, advised her to report the matter to police and drove away, leaving the law keepers to search the premises.
Police officers from Flying Squad would latter strip the company’s employees naked, handcuff and bundle them unto a police truck. There is no evidence from the video shot by one of the neighbours this newspaper has seen putting Col Kulaigye at the scene of the operation.

Col Kulaigye yesterday also clarified that plain-clothed officers of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) were not part of the search team and he did not approach them, instead accusing Mr Kamugisha of inflaming the situation to evade justice by dragging names of security agencies.
The clarification was confirmed by the CMI chief, Brig Charles Bakahumura, who countered claims that his officers were part of the sting operation as untrue and malicious.
Whereas Mr Kamugisha claims he was not party to the transaction between Murungi and the Congolese and his only role was to test the gold’s purity, the colonel contends that the two kilogrammes of gold vanished from his premises and he must be tasked to produce it.

Intriguingly the Congolese whom Mr Kamugisha claims was introduced to him by Murungi doesn’t feature as a complainant in the police records.
“We are tracing him and trust me it will take police a day to get that Congolese national. He also has to record a statement,” Onyango said. By press time yesterday, Ms Murungi whom this newspaper could not reach for a comment as her known telephone number was switched off, had not yet been summoned by police.

What happened and more

Last Thursday, Mr Kamugisha claims Ms Murungi approached him with a Congolese man whom she introduced as a gold seller and ascertained if he could test the gold before she could purchase it from him. The two were charged Shs667,000 for the tests on Friday and the gold purity confirmed at 96 per cent and handed back to the Congolese man whom she had by now paid Shs166.5m leaving a balance of Shs33.3m.
“The Congolese told her if he would keep the gold until she pays the remaining $10,000 and they left my office with their gold. The next day, I heard from her was that the Congolese had now handed her a bag containing pavers. How the gold turned into pavers after we had tested is not my business,” Kamugisha said.

It is at this point that Murungi contacted Kamugisha, asking him for whereabouts of the Congolese before involving her business partner and relative Kulaigye.
Could Ms Murungi have betrayed the senior army officer and created the story of the gold dealer short changing her?
How come the Congolese dealer, assuming his pure gold had been exchanged with pavers at Kamugisha’s office, doesn’t turn up to complain at his known address? How long had Ms Murungi known the Congolese dealer? Was he and herself licensed to deal in gold?

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