Kololo based Medipal International Hospital Kampala is in trouble over harassing, discriminating and failing to pay a female medical doctor.

On 22nd June, 2022, Dr. Asiimwe Kemigisha petitioned the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Labour Office accusing the management of the Medipal of discriminating her, maligning and mistreating her.

Kemigisha filed her complaint through her lawyers of Bluebell Legal Advocates.
She particularly singled out Dr. Adnan Khan, the Hospital’s Medical Director, as the second respondent and the hospital management as the first respondent.
According to the documents seen by the mighty Grapevine, Dr. Kemigisha claims that Dr. Khan, a Pakistan native has bias against women and it is the reason why she has been discriminated against.

She said that at one point, he castigated her simply for hugging male colleagues while running up the stairs. Dr. Kemigisha explained in her complaint that she sensed insincerity and foul play when none of the male Colleagues she hugged were tasked to explain.

“The male colleagues I hugged were never apprehended which flagged early signs of discrimination and bias against women by the 2nd Respondent (Dr. Khan).

“ I requested for a fair hearing and asked for the warning letter together with the evidence related thereto from the 1st Respondent’s Human Resource Manager but shockingly, she informed me that the same could not be availed,” Kemigisha’s statement reads.

She revealed to Court that in November 2019, she commenced employment at the facility as a Medical Officer.

However, she was never given a formal contract of Employment.
In February 2022, she was promoted to Senior House Officer (SHO.). This did not go well with Dr. Adnan who refused to acknowledge her promotion to date.

Unfortunately, the promotion was not in writing but it is buttressed by the switch in her log-ins and the duty rota. Dr. Kemigisha said that she attempted to seek Dr. Khan’s audience to find a lasting solution but he was dismissive.

“I approached the 2nd Respondent (Dr. Khan) in his office for a discussion about the issue but he shrugged it off and angrily shouted at me” she said.

She emphasised that despite the non-stop harassment, she acted professionally and executed her duties as assigned on the duty rota.
But that the persecution from Dr. Khan was relentless.

“The harassment and discrimination from the 2nd Respondent didn’t stop after my promotion as Senior House Officer because circumstantial evidence shows that the 2nd Respondent refused to acknowledge my promotion and made sure that I neither gets a written contract nor payment for my services as SHO and yet my peers had written contracts and have at all material times received payment,” she added in her statement.

She claims that after being promoted, she was not paid until when she requested for a conflict resolution meeting. Dr. Kemigisha asserts that whenever she would seek clarification from the HR manager about her pay, the response was that Dr. Khan was still processing her documents.

She laments that her incessant troubles compelled her to professionally opt for a conflict resolution meeting with Dr. Khan on 29th April 2022 as a first step towards conflict management. Subsequently, Dr Khan convened a meeting on 13th May 2022.

The attendees were Dr. Khan, Dr. Kemigisha, Dr. Lisa Numusiima (Supervisor Medical Officer), Dr. Richard Lukandwa (Medical Director), Ms. Hussein Alishba (the HR manager) and a gentleman who identified himself as Henry, a lawyer for the hospital.

She explains that in the meeting, the hospital lawyer stated that he was a neutral party who heads the facility’s harassment committee. But she later discovered that his name is Henry Nyegenye, an advocate attached to the law firm of Arcadia Advocates, which represents the facility.

Dr. Kemigisha notes that during the meeting, blame was placed on different departments, mainly the HR department for not having formalised her SHO contract.

She notes that Dr Khan, who is the facility’s accounting officer, vehemently feigned ignorance of the anomalies. Dr. Kemigisha adds that the Respondents insisted that her promotion to SHO was never a promotion, and that it was not within the facility’s employment structure. The Respondents termed her relationship with the facility as a consultancy engagement.

She says that she never received any written communication for the terms before transitioning into the SHO role and that it is not her duty to presume her terms of engagement.

She explains that in any case, she should have availed the terms of the engagement instead of forcing her to resign from employment. Dr. Kemigisha says several futile maneuvers were made to persuade her to retract the letter containing her grievances of harassment by Dr. Khan.

She claims that she was even rebuked for requesting for a direct conflict resolution meeting with Dr. Khan instead of following a harassment policy by the hospital which has never been disclosed to her.

Dr. Kemigisha believes that Dr. Khan’s action of inviting a lawyer to the conflict resolution meeting without giving her notice to invite her own lawyer and having the lawyer interrogating her in the said meeting in itself was harassment.

She claims Nyegenye has since then played an integral role in covering up the harassment on behalf of the Respondents.

Dr. Kemigisha says in due course, she will provide a transcript of the audio recording of the conflict resolution meeting. She states that on 17th May 2022, the HR Manager Alishba asked her to write a letter clarifying her harassment claims so that the SHO contract could be processed. She says she declined to do so because it was wrong since the two were mutually exclusive.

She says more misery was piled on her, and in an email sent by Dr. Lukandwa on 25th May, she was inform that since she had not subjected herself to a formal recruitment process to transition to SHO, she could no longer execute the duties of SHO.

She noted that subsequently, she was struck off the SHO duty rota. She said that the hospital’s lawyers asked her to resign from her position of Medical Officer, to enable formalisation of her promotion to SHO.
She declined to do so, as she believed it was irregular.

On 10th June 2022, another meeting was held at the hospital’s office, which was attended by Dr. Kemigisha’s lawyer, Mr. Isaac Ssali Mugerwa.
However, the Respondents were adamant, and claimed they were unable to pay her salary arrears because they were gripped with financial strife.
The petition further reveals that Nyegenye made a phone call to Dr. Kemigisha’s lawyer, and conceded that she had pertinent grievances.

Documents seen by the mighty Grapevine show that on 13th June 2022, Nyegenye communicated to Mr. Mugerwa and reiterated the Hospital’s position that the Complainant should provide both an Application letter for the SHO appointment and a resignation letter as MO so that the Respondents could process the transition from M.O to SHO.

Dr. Kemigisha says the incessant persecution, compelled her to write a letter dated 15th June 2022, informing the Respondents that she had been constructively dismissed from her employment.
She emphasised that interestingly on 16th June 2022, after the Respondents had achieved their objective of terminating her, they remitted her two months salary as medical officer on her account.

Dr. Kemigisha notes that on 20th day June 2022, the Respondents sent an email, asking her to apply for the position of SHO in which she had already served for over 4 months.
“As a result of the aforementioned wrongful, discriminative actions of the Respondents, I have suffered unemployment, psychological stress and strain, financial constraints for which I shall seek recompose in general, aggravated and punitive damages” she prayed to Court.

By Sengooba Alirabaki

Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama’s Electoral Commission has cleared the air on allegations that they held a night meeting with the National Unity Platform (NUP) leadership.

On Thursday, appearing on NBS TV’s Frontline, Gideon Tugume, the Secretary for Information in Moses Kibalama’s NUP faction alleged that they have enough evidence including camera footage showing Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine’s NUP faction leaders, led by David Lewis Rubongoya, meeting top Electoral Commission leaders at night.

He claimed that the Tuesday night meeting resulted in the Electoral Commission letter disowning Kibalama’s faction and declaring Bobi Wine’s faction as legal.

Tugume was supported by government spokesperson and also the Media Center boss, Ofwono Opondo who insisted that the Electoral Commission should be investigated over the night meeting allegation.

However, in a phone conversation with theGrapevine, Mr. Paul Bukenya, the Electoral Commission spokesperson rubbished the allegation.
“It is not true that we meet people at night. Our offices are open between 8am to 5pm, beyond that time, we are officially closed for any business,” the soft spoken Mr. Bukenya explained.

He further emphasized that the Electoral Commission only deals with legally recognised institutions and Bobi Wine’s NUP is the recognised NUP leadership.

He explained that they cannot recognise an institution whose legal records they don’t have.

“All of us know that Bobi Wine’s NUP is the leading opposition party in parliament and we have been sending them taxpayers money because of their numerical strength in parliament not Kibalama’s faction,” he noted.

By Sengooba Alirabaki

Veteran radio talk show host Meddie Nsereko Ssebuliba has narrated how he saved now Operation Wealth Creation boss Gen. Salim Saleh from being punched by the late Dr. Suleiman Kiggundu over the Greenland bank closure.

The CBS FM Radio presenter disclosed that, “For the last 26 years which I have spent here moderating political talk shows, I have seen a lot of things that have surprised me, but I will never forget the two talk shows which put me in tension. One was when I hosted late Dr. Kiggundu and Gen. Salim Saleh over the closure of Greenland bank, and another is when I hosted President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on Mambo Bado.”

He revealed that in the early 2000s, the closure of Greenland bank was a very big topic of discussion since many business people both big and small were customers to the bank.

Nsereko re-counted that as words filled with bitterness and anger were being exchanged between Dr. Kiggundu and Gen. Saleh’s camps, he was forced with approval from the producers of ‘Kkiriza oba ggana’ talk show to invite both Saleh and Kiggundu to a debate live on radio to explain their issues.

Nsereko related that Gen. Saleh was the first to arrive at Bulange Mengo, the headquarters of CBS radio. A few minutes to 7pm, Dr. Kiggundu also arrived. But when he looked at Gen. Saleh he quickly lost his temper and started throwing strong abusive words at him.

“Kigundu told me, Nsereko, I cannot sit in the same room with that man who has double standards, let me go. The man was very bitter and I understood his bitterness but to calm him down, I greeted him in Islam. I said, Dr. Salaam-Alaikum, let us enter the studio, he accepted and we entered the studio. We found Gen. Saleh already seated inside,” he said.

He narrated that when Dr. Kiggundu looked at Saleh he lost his temper again and tried to punch him.

“He grabbed him but I pleaded with him not to fight. When the talk show started, Dr. Kiggundu accused Gen. Saleh of betraying his loyalty because he supported them in the bush and even when they had just captured power, he kept on financially supporting them but it’s a pity that they paid him by taking his bank,” Nsereko divulged.

Nsereko said that Dr. Kiggundu also accused Gen. Saleh of being bad hearted especially towards Baganda and that’s why he spearheaded the move to impoverish him and fraudulently took his bank.

Nsereko said that in his defense, Gen. Saleh denied all the allegations insisting that it was Bank of Uganda that sold Greenland bank not him.

Nsereko asserted that the second show that put him on tension was during the 2006 election.

He narrated that because Besigye was breathing down President Museveni’s neck, towards the 2006 presidential elections, Museveni decided to appear on CBS’s Mambo Bado political talk show.

By then, Mambo Bado was the hottest and most listened to political talk show in the country.

Museveni complained that the show was full of opposition supporters who use the platform to abuse him. However, CBS radio management told him that they are not against him but his people don’t want to appear on talk shows to counteract opposition’s allegations.

“President Museveni told me, ‘You have been telling me that my people fear these opposition people, now I have come to talk for myself’,” Nsereko quoted Museveni’s opening remarks.

He said that after Museveni’s long submissions, he invited other people to counter his submissions and among them was a one Nakunda Muwanga who told the president that he is a dictator who is competing for president after tying the hands and legs of those competing against him.

Nsereko narrated that Museveni was very bitter with Muwanga’s submission and a few days later, Mambo Bado talk show was banned by the Uganda Communication Commission.

He added that Dr. Kizza Besigye, Lt. Gen. Henry Tumukunde, Gen. David Sejusa are the other prominent people who put him in a difficult position behind the microphone.

By Sengooba Alirabaki