Minister asks KCCA boss to punish officials in bribery saga

The Minister for Kampala and Metropolitan Affairs Minsa Kabanda has directed the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Executive Director, Dorothy Kisaka, to immediately take action against two senior officials named by the Inspector General of Government (IGG) in a bribery scandal.

The two KCCA officials are Lot Four roads project revenue accounting and evaluation manager Godfrey Galimaka Katerega and Mr Ivan Kirya who is the project financial supervisor and acting accounting manager.

In an August 22, 2022 letter seen by Monitor, the minister warned that she “will not allow self-serving unpatriotic government employees to derail government programmes and tarnish KCCA’s name.”

Ms Kabanda also asked Ms Kisaka to furnish her with KCCA staff who have corruption-related complaints against them and explain why no action has been taken against them.

The minister's directive was triggered by the cancellation of the procurement for the Lot Four roads project by the IGG over alleged corruption.

The IGG noted that Mr Galimaka and Mr Kirya allegedly solicited for a bribe from one of the road construction firms so as to influence the evaluation process in its favor.

Additionally, Ms Kabanda attributed delays in implementing development works to the scandal even after government released money borrowed from the AfDB for the Lot Four roads project.

“…with the IGG’s directive that the procurement be cancelled because of a few individuals’ greed or malfeasance, some processes have to be restarted further prolonging the project,” the minister wrote.

When contacted, Ms Kisaka told Monitor that a disciplinary mechanism has been implemented against the two officials but didn’t specify what punishment was given.

IGG probe

The IGG said that by accepting to meet over lunch with agents of bidders for Lot Four contract on January 31, 2022, and promised a bribe well aware that the Evaluation Committee was still in the process of compiling the report, Mr Galimaka and his team tainted the evaluation process.

The Ombudsman also directed the KCCA contracts committee with the approval of the Accounting Officer to appoint a new Evaluation Committee for Lot Four and carry out a fresh procurement.

“…listening to the audio recording, it clearly demonstrates that corruption in this tender process was conceived at the beginning of the tender process,” the IGG’s letter to Ms Kisaka dated July 28 2022 reads.

When contacted last week, the accused officials confirmed that they met unidentified people at Nanjing Restaurant whom they later learnt were agents of one of the construction firms who had bid for the Lot Four roads deal. However, they denied soliciting for bribe.

The project

Uganda received $288 million (Shs1.1 trillion) from AfDB to finance Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project (KCRRP).

The Project which covers five Lots is part of the Citywide Infrastructure Improvement Programme aimed at tackling congestion within the city through improvement of the road network, upgrading of traffic junctions, and enhanced drainage capacity to mitigate flooding on the streets.

Lot Four comprises upgrading to paved standard of 3.94km roads, reconstruction of 8.1km and reconstruction and dualling of 3.90km roads including signalization of junctions in Kawempe, Lubaga, Makindye and Central divisions.