Kadaga says Kitutu dragged her into iron sheets scandal
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community Affairs Rebecca Kadaga interfaces with the Presidential Affairs Committee at the Kingdom Building in Kampala on April 13, 2023. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The reason she accepted them, the former Speaker said, was because some of her constituents in Kamuli District needed roofing material for different community projects.
- The committee is winding up its parallel probe into the mismanagement of relief items meant for vulnerable people in Karamoja.
Former Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga yesterday suggested before a House committee that she was unwittingly sucked into the Karamoja iron sheets scandal by under-fire Karamoja Affairs minister Mary Goretti Kitutu.
Ms Kadaga, who is now First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community Affairs, pinned her colleague when she met the Parliament’s Presidential Affairs Committee.
The committee is winding up its parallel probe into the mismanagement of relief items meant for vulnerable people in Karamoja.
“We were in Cabinet [in October] and then Honourable Kitutu came by me and said “Contact me for iron sheets.” So, I said, “Oh, I think God has answered my prayers,” Ms Kadaga told the committee at her office in Kingdom Plaza, Kampala. Ms Kadaga said she then notified her assistants to follow up the matter.
“I told them to check with Kitutu. But, nothing happened in November and December. Then, sometime in January (2023), my assistant informed me that they (Kitutu’s team) had rang at my office stating that we can send a car to pick up the iron sheets. So, I sent my lorry,” Ms Kadaga added.
The former Speaker maintained that she had no clue that she was picking iron sheets exclusively meant for the multi-billion Karamoja Community Empowerment project.
The reason she accepted them, the former Speaker said, was because some of her constituents in Kamuli District needed roofing material for different community projects. Besides, she added, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) had not been in a position to help after she had previously written and asked for help in August 2022.
“A number of facilities [in Kamuli including] schools, health centres, churches, households were damaged after severe hailstorms. So, I received requests from the population for relief. So, I wrote to the Office of the Prime Minister requesting support,” she said.
“The PS [Permanent Secretary] of the OPM wrote back and said that they did not have anything and that I should look elsewhere. So, I tried the ministries of Education and Health, but nothing was forthcoming. So, I continued waiting because the Office of the Prime Minister is the place where we all report for relief,” Ms Kadaga added.
It was then in October that Ms Kitutu made the offer to help. Ms Kadaga was given 500 iron sheets.
When the committee deputy chairperson Naome Kabasharira (Rushenyi County) asked whether she distributed them, Ms Kadaga said the iron sheets are still lying in her store as the local community in Kamuli mobilises resources to buy roofing timber.
Mr Tony Awany (Nwoya County) asked whether she would return the iron sheets following the President’s April 3 directive that all unintended beneficiaries must either pay for their value or return the roofing materials.
Ms Kadaga replied: “I am not going to return them. I will pay for them because I want to do the work for which they were bought. Those children must have their schools and women must have their health centre.”
When the iron sheets scandal began unfolding, Ms Kadaga on February 22 confirmed in a tweet that she had requested for, and received, 250 iron sheets from the Office of the Prime Minister to facilitate repair of Buzaaya Health Centre II in Kamuli District.
She also confirmed receiving 250 iron sheets from OPM to repair Buwooya Primary School, which together with the health centre had equally been devastated by hailstorms.
Background
The iron sheets saga exploded into the public domain in February after ministers and MPs were reported to have irregularly benefited from relief items meant for Karamoja. Top government officials were named in the scandal. The items had been budgeted for in a Shs39b supplementary, which Parliament passed in December, 2021. Up to Shs22b of that money was allocated towards purchasing goats while Shs5b was set aside for procuring 100,000 iron sheets. Ms Kitutu is instead reported to have diverted 14,500 iron sheets from that stock to colleagues in Cabinet and several MPs.
