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    INSIDE STORY: How Trade PS Ssali Floored Ruthless City Tycoon, Top Gov’t Officials Who Wanted Her Out Over Multibillion Deals…

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    Secretary to Treasury Ramathan Ggoobi (L) and Geraldine Ssali (R)

    In her letter dated 26th October, 2023 to Permanent Secretary and also the Secretary to Treasury Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Public Service and also Secretary to cabinet Lucy Nakyobe directed that Geraldine Ssali Busuulwa, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Trade, Industries and Cooperatives (MTIC) be reinstated with full powers in her offices.

    Nakyobe Cited President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s letter dated 22nd October, 2023 concerning Ssali’s situation by decreasing her powers in the ministry in which she is the accounting officer.

    Few weeks back, working on the directives of the parliamentary Committee on Trade chaired by Mwine Mpaka, Ggoobi replaced Ssali as the accounting officer with her Under Secretary Oyo Andima.

    Sources close to Ssali revealed that since then, she has been having clandestine meetings to explain herself before people she knows have powers to influence and have Ggoobi’s decision reversed.

    Sources said that among the people Ssali pleaded with was Gen. Salim Saleh president Museveni’s younger brother and also one of his chief advisors.

    Sources divulged that Ssali explained to Gen. Saleh that she is being tormented because she saved government from losing billions of shillings in a deal she refused.

    Sources said that Museveni’s letter was based on Gen. Saleh’s advice who realised that Ssali’s decision indeed saved the government from losing billions of shillings.

    Sources claim that Ssali together with Ggoobi are among the many top government officials who Gen. Saleh recommended to be given jobs in President Museveni’s government.

    Ssali’s reinstatement is a big blow to a certain ruthless tycoon who wanted the Trade ministry to rent on his building in Kampala, a deal where he was expecting to collect billions of money each year.

    The said tycoon is known to be in cahoots with some members of the deep state who have severally used such schemes to put down government officers who tried to frustrate their business deals with government.

    Before Ssali, their recent victim was Sylvia Muwebwa Ntambi, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) who was humiliated and charged in Courts of law with offences related to corruption and embezzlement of public funds.

    In 2020, Ntambi was charged before the Anti-Corruption Court on allegations of conspiring to defraud the government of Uganda a sum of Uganda Shillings thirty five million, Two Thousand (Shs. 35,002,000).

    Ntambi was also charged with abuse of office when she neglected her duty of directing the affairs and administration as the chairperson of the Commission thereby leading to gross mismanagement of the Commission’s funds.

    She was immediately interdicted on the instructions of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) but in 2021.

    The same DPP dropped charges against her and highly placed sources in the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development told theGrapevine that all of Ntambi’s troubles started when she stopped the commission from renting on one of the newly completed building belonging to this same malicious tycoon in town who has a lot of buildings.

    Back to Ssali, her troubles stem from Mwine’s committee investigation which established that she mismanaged public money.

    However, in her defense, Ssali explained that her ministry received a Supplementary Budget of Shs5bn meant to procure office space for the ministry offices for rent because Farmer’s House, a building which currently houses the ministry, was considered overly dilapidated.

    She further explained that during the financial year 2022-23, the ministry received Shs.3bn and was added to Shs5bn which totaled Shs.8bn for rent in that particular year.

    She added that the ministry however had prior justified that there was need for a further Shs3bn for partitioning and Shs2bn for furniture and after weighing all the options, they decided to renovate Farmer’s House at a much lesser cost than incurring recurrent costs on rent annually.

    She disclosed that she was even given clearance by the Solicitor General to proceed with renovating Farmer’s house.

    She explained that currently, government is undertaking a rationalization of government agencies programmes with the main goal of cutting down costs like rent.

    So, instead of taking the ministry to a new building where government would be spending huge sums of money monthly, she took the option of renovating farmer’s house which would help government save a lot of money.

    She added that her ministry was going to be home to an additional three government agencies and these are Uganda Warehouse Receipting Systems Authority, Uganda Export Promotions Board and Uganda Free Zones Authority.

    Sources told theGrapevine that it is this information that Ssali re-laid to Gen. Saleh explaining why she was being fought.

    This is not the first time that Ssali is having trouble with individuals in the Deep State.

    Around 2017, when she was still Deputy Managing Director at National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Ssali developed a misunderstanding with her then Boss Richard Byarugaba.

    Ssali disclosed that the way Byarugaba ran the pension Fund was questionable. This put her into a lot of trouble with the big guns in NSSF and Ministry of Finance and she ended up losing her Job.

    By the time she was fired, Ssali had exhibited high performance at the pension fund according to the IGG findings.

    This performance was manifested in the surplus that was realized in the Fund’s financial receipts in 2014 when she was Ag MD whereby after paying members an interest of 13%, the NSSF had excess liquidity of 272bn.

    Moreover this was at a time most of the top NSSF managers were holding positions in acting capacity without being confirmed. She was the Acting MD; Kasirye Joseph was Ag head of HRM and was later replaced by Eseza Byakika who also was in acting capacity.

    Fast forward in 2023, Byarugaba was booted from the Job of MD NSSF after a battle with his line minister Betty Amongi who accused him mismanaging the fund.

    The IGG also implicated him on embezzlement, Corruption and mismanagement of the pension fund. However, the IGG later exonerated him.

    After being let loose by the IGG, Byarugaba ran to court challenging the decision to fire him and the case is still pending hearing.

     

    By Sengooba Alirabaki

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    MY MONEY

    KISAKA’S ROTTEN KCCA: Panic As More KCCA Bosses Face Arrest Over Giving Bribes, Asking For Sex In Exchange For Jobs…

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    KCCA ED Dorothy Kisaka (L) and troubled David Balondemu (R)

    As flamboyant city lawyer David Balondemu who also the Kampala District Land Board is still on remand at Luzira prison over multimillion fraud cases, the mighty Grapevine has learnt that more Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) bosses will soon face arrest over giving bribes and offering sex in exchange for jobs.

    On Wednesday, Buganda Road Grade One Magistrate Winnie Nankya held Balondemu’s application for bail while delivering her ruling on after an emergency application filed by the State led by Ivan Kyazze.

    State claimed that the accused person forged some of the documents his lawyers presented including some former East African Assemble legislator Fred Mukasa Mbidde.

    He based on the affidavit of the Chief Executive Officer of Kampala Hospital Limited Dr. Peter Kibuuka who claimed that the said document indicating that the accused person was going for surgery at their hospital was not authored by his hospital.

    State alleges that the accused together with others between the months of November 2022 and April 2023,  at Bloom Advocates with intent to defraud, obtained $553,000 from KG Unlimited LLC by falsely pretending that they were going to award it a contract of supplying agricultural drone sprayers and fertilizers which was false. Balondemu denied all the charges.

    Balondemu was re-arrested last week few weeks after being released from Luzira prison on allegations that between the months of March and November 2021 at the offices of Balondemu and Company Advocates along Parliamentary Avenue in Kampala City, he obtained US Dollars 600,000 by falsely pretending that they were selling 53 kilograms of Gold to Hyun UK Kim a Korean investor whereas not.

    Highly placed sources at Brig. Gen. Henry Isoke’s State House Anti-Corruption Unit revealed that Balondemu is one of the many bosses at KCCA who have been under investigation for the past two years.

    These sources boasted that all the people that Balondemu has been working with to defraud investors are going to be handled in piecemeal.

    A KCCA insider disclosed to theGrapevine that Balondemu still has over three criminal files set to be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Justice Jane Frances Abodo for sanctioning and advised him not to waste his money and time on applying for several court bails.

    Sources said that very soon, another top boss at KCCA who is a lawyer is going to be arrested after DPP gathered overwhelming evidence that he paid a bribe in exchange for the job.

    “He is currently sitting on one of the boards at KCCA but to be appointed, he paid Shs70m to one of the political heads at KCCA. He also gave another Shs40m to the same political head which he shared with some KCCA City Hall councilors to soften his way to the office.

    This is the reason why there is a lot of corruption at KCCA because such people want to recover their money through fraudulent deals including giving away public land,” a source said.

    Sources said that politicians at KCCA are using their Personal Assistants to receive bribe.

    They gave the example of a Chinese national who has already recorded a statement at State House Anti-Corruption Unit narrating how a Personal Assistant to a politician at City Hall defrauded him of over Shs3bn.

    He was taken to his boss’s office at City Hall to show him that even the boss knows what was going on.

    Detectives are also investigating a male boss at KCCA technical wing who has been made it a business to sleep with young girls especially those from the university after promising them jobs.

    Sources said that the said boss was using the same tricks at one of the government agency where he was working before joining KCCA.

    In her report, the Inspector General of Government Beti Namisango Kamya declared ED Dorothy Kisaka led KCCA as one of the top government agencies with high levels of corruption.

    Kampala affairs State Minister Joseph Kabuye Kyoffatogabye recently pined top technical wing bosses of fueling the vice by sleeping on the job to buy popularity among the population.

     

    By Sengooba Alirabaki

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    CELEBRITY GOSSIP

    Lubaga South Legislator Mukasa On Suicide Watch After Landlord Throws Him Out Of Rented House, Puts His Properties On Sale To Survive …

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    Lubaga South legislator Aloysius Mukasa

    Flamboyant Lubaga South legislator Aloysius Talton Gold Mukasa is on suicide watch with money lenders breathing down his neck.

    His woes escalated recently when his landlord threatened to throw him out of his house along Entebbe road over delayed rent payments.

    Mukasa is among the National Unity Platform(NUP) legislators who have not enjoyed their stay in parliament and is always on the run, hiding from moneylenders to elude arrest him over none payment.

    His woes started in Court where he spent millions of shillings to settle the legal battle instituted against him by his immediate political rival Princess Eugenia Nassolo who was contesting his education and accusing him of committing election offences.

    Nasolo hired some of the best lawyers in Kampala who included; Caleb Alaka, Samuel Muyizi Mulindwa and Kenneth Paul Kakande who convinced her to settle the matter out of Court, where a juicy deal was reached.

    This deal punched big holes in Mukasa’s pockets.

    Mukasa also hired Justine Ssemuyaba another serious lawyer who he paid huge sums of money in legal fees to represent him.

    It should also be noted that Mukasa was among the candidates who spent a lot of money during campaigns and sources close to him claim that he spent more than Shs5bn in campaigns including facilitating the process of winning the NUP ticket.

    Sources divulged that Mukasa thought that he was going to get a lot of money in politics by cutting deals which would help him to cover the gaps in his businesses among which included FACO which is dealing in solving the problems of manhood among men, changing women’s figures and DX4.

    However, news reaching our political desk shows that the landlord on the building which has been housing FACO for years in Ndeeba along Masaka road has thrown him out of his building over delayed rent payments.

    Sources added that Mukasa first sold his primary school and used part of the money to pay the loans to survive money lenders who were on his neck.

    Recently, he sold his Ambulance car which he bought during the campaigns to Rhino Funeral Management Company.

    He also sold the vehicle truck which he bought to help his people to solve the problem of water especially at the functions and sources claim that he sold it to Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi the Butambala County legislator at Shs53m.

    Kivumbi was not interested in the track but he bought it to save his fellow legislator and he added it to his two water tracks in the constituency.

    Sources said that the big problem that Mukasa currently has is to settle the landlord at home because he is going to be embarrassed if he throws him out of his house with his wife and entire family.

    His competitors claim that Mukasa was among the NUP legislators who were facilitated by the State to infiltrate Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu’s camp during the 2021 general election.

    theGrapevine made a number of efforts to talk to Mukasa for a comment by making several phone calls to his five known phone numbers but they were all not going through.

     

    By Levi Yashayahu

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    MY MONEY

    City Businessman, King Ronnie Court Battle For UNRA Shs6bn Compensation Cash Goes To Court Of Appeal…

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    Dr. Kasasa (L) and the Kabaka of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi (R)

    The Lands Division of the High Court judge Flavia Nassuna Matovu has allowed controversial city businessman Dr. Muhammad Buwule Kasasa to appeal against her ruling at the Court of Appeal.

    In her ruling, justice Nassuna noted that there are substantial questions of law that warrant consideration by the upper court.

    She explained that it is fair for her to allow Dr. Kasasa to appeal her ruling to the court of appeal and argue out his case and see whether he can convince the Court of Appeal justices to allow his application to withdraw Shs6bn which he is fighting for with the Kabaka of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s family.

    In July, Justice Nassuna dismissed Kasasa’s application on ground that he cannot allow him to withdraw the Shs6bn which Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) deposited on the bank accounts of the judiciary.

    UNRA secured a court order to deposit the money to the judiciary bank accounts after both Dr. Kasasa and King Ronnie’s family claimed ownership of the land at Mutungo hill where Kampala-Jinja Expressway which is under construction is going to pass.

    In his application, Kasasa insisted that he is the rightful owner of the 640 acres of land comprising Kyadondo Block 237 plots 178, 388 at Mutungo in Nakawa Division Kampala City.

    Dr. Kasasa through his lawyers lead by Simon Kizza claims that they defeated King Ronnie’s family who also double as the Administrators of Sir Edward Mutesa Walugembe’s Estate who are; Prince David Kintu Wasajja, Princess Dorothy Nasolo and Princess Sarah Kagere at the Court of Appeal.

    He submited that Justice Elizabeth Musoke, Justice Christopher Gashirabake and Justice Eva Luswata declared him the rightful owner of the contested land which gives him the green light to get the compensation because King Ronnie’s family did not appeal the decision.

    He stated in his application that he is very sick and he needs the said money to get medication abroad and to cater for his family.

    However, King Ronnie’s family lawyers of K&K Advocates led by Usaama Sebuufu protested the application.

     

    By Grapevine Reporter

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