By Otim Nape

As promised we are back to update our scandal involving NITA-Uganda and Soliton Telmec the Kenyan company that was recently added another 10 years to continue providing very expensive internet bandwidth to the government of Uganda, its ministries departments and agencies.

As earlier reported, the contract has a number of problems including exceeding the best practice principle period averaging between 2 to 5 years. It was also not based on any assessment of Soliton’s past performance as there were no Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that the NITA top management relied on. Reliable sources say NITA hasn’t been very keen to enforce the government of Uganda’s rights and entitlements under the contract including ensuring knowledge transfer whereby 80% of the employees must be Ugandans.

It’s further revealed that on getting the NITA deal, Soliton Telmec bosses even got better pay and salary increment because of the windfall that resulted from the Ugandan internet deal.

Based in Soliton Park North Road Nairobi, Soliton has previously worked for Kenya Data Networks Ltd on Metropolitan Fiber Developments and the total project was worth USD24.6m. That was in 2010 and the senior implementation staff were Abdirahman Sheikh Hassan Bashir, Amin Mohamed Hamdi and Lawrence Ochieng. In 2011, Soliton did work for Safaricom in Kenya regarding Metro Developments countrywide for USD3.4M and another USD7.7m. All this information is contained in confidential leaked NITA documents. In 2010, Soliton also did work for Frontier Optical Networks at USD4.5m.

The Shocking Salaries- Forget about the people like Jennifer Musisi, Allen Kagina, Richard Byarugaba and others that we thought earn a lot of money. At Soliton, the top managers are in their own category after all their cash cow NITA is still alive and kicking. The guys earn in dollars and the top earning official is the CEO Abdirahman Omar Sheikh whose take home per month is USD14,586 (which is more than 58m in Ugandan money). In the year the CEO bags USD175,033 which is just net salary before you factor in allowances and other benefits. The lowest paid Soliton employee, according to the salary lists contained in the leaked NITA documents, is the sales and marketing executive category where each worker earns USD2,431 (more than 9.7m Uganda shillings) and is annually entitled to USD29,172 and that is just the retainer for these sales executives because their earning is mostly from the commission which is a percentage of the deals they bring in. Soliton insiders say the company doesn’t worry about sustainability as long as the plentiful NITA taps remain open.

About Soliton top executives- the following is the short profile, qualifications, experience of the company’s top bosses and how they are remunerated;

Soliton Group CEO, Eng. Abdirahman Omar Sheikh

Abdirahman Omar Sheikh-As the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Omar is the overall Soliton team leader in Uganda and was heavily involved in securing the NITA deal having realized the Uganda IT authority giants were sleeping and it was easy to impose very harsh contract provisions on them. In August 2012, it was Omar who sat down with NITA ED James Saka and signed the contract on behalf of Soliton Telmec which is clearly a Kenyan company operating in total disregard of BuBu that requires a lot of local content absorption in such big contracts. The two witnesses to the contract signing were Stella Alibateese the NITA Director in charge of Regulations and Legal Services and Mahat M Somane, the lawyer for Soliton operating on P.O. Box 40111-00100 Nairobi Kenya. It’s very clear the Kenyan negotiated a very good deal having clearly seen the NITA team representing Uganda weren’t acting in a very patriotic way. Omar’s negotiation skills ensured Soliton would share 50% of all the revenues collected (this is over USD27m per year) plus many other benefits like charging each Cisco switch at USD2600 (it’s at 1.4m on open market) and each manhole installed at USD13000 (MTN buys the same at 400,000). NITA is also charged USD1300 per each Building Entry (BE) and yet MTN is charged zero for doing the same work by the same company. It appears losses they made with MTN if any, are recouped through cheating GoU through NITA. Soliton also charges NITA/GoU USD650 per optical network unit (ONU) yet the same costs just USD50 on the open market! You can imagine all that cheating to GoU!! There are also big questions regarding which entities use our NBI to transport internet bandwidth. From this aspect alone, millions of dollars is annually collected and the exact details are restricted to Soliton and the three top most powerful bosses at NITA (Peter Kahigi, Vivian Dambya and ED James Saka). Stakeholders want a forensic audit in that area to establish the exact amount government annually loses to Soliton. Soliton is also paid colossal sums of money in dubious cable relocation and extensions whereby USD26 is paid per meter and yet MTN pays only USD11 to the same Soliton Company doing the same amount of work. Most often, NITA top bosses who are supposed to keenly scrutinize these things are ever on the plane enjoying expensive trips, costly air tickets and travel allowances. We have much documentation on these travels to which destinations and the allowances earned and it will be shared here in the coming days. The contract also allows Soliton to charge the transport fee USD200 per mbps carried on the NBI which Uganda government owns and maintains. Every month, Soliton makes more than USD800,000 from this transport fees alone since the government MDAs use not less than 3800 mbps per month. The Kenyan CEO outsmarted Ugandans in NITA further by ensuring Soliton was given free fiber cable equipment to lay the connection between Masaka and Katuna yet the government of Uganda (NITA) was made to pay for the cable equipment it already owned. This clearly shows that Abdirahman Omar Sheikh (if he exists at all) must be a very shrewd negotiator and his company is ever generously rewarding him. Leaked NITA documents show that Abdirahman Omar Sheikh’s annual salary is USD175,033 and monthly its USD14,586 (which is more than 58m per month in Ugandan money). He has worked with Soliton for more than 20 years. He is the overall person and the authorized Soliton representative according to the leaked NITA documents. He was born on 8^th Sept 1965 and is Kenyan national and electrical engineer by training. He is a member of the Kenyan Engineers Registration Board and this makes NITA bosses think he is highly qualified and no Ugandan can match his qualifications. He has worked in the telecom industry for over 25 years both as an engineer and manager. He has a Bsc in Mathematics which Kaguta M7 the President would call a flat course. Gratefully the Soliton CEO has much more when it comes to qualifications; he has a Bsc in Electrical and Electronics and he has served Soliton as CEO since 2004 todate. He has also previously worked with Global Telecomm Ltd as Business Development Manager (1995-1996); then Telkom Kenya Ltd as CEO (1994-1995) and Kenya Postal & Telecommunications Ltd as a pupil engineer (1992-1994). He is a founder of Soliton Systems House and was their CEO from 2004 to 2007. He speaks fluent English and Kiswahili but these are qualifications many better Ugandan managers have and much more, implying the Soliton CEO can’t claim to be exceptionally qualified.

2-Amin Abdi Ali-She is the Soliton Chief Finance Officer (CFO) and earns from the NITA-Soliton deal USD102,103 annually which comes to the monthly salary of USD8,508 which comes to more than 34m in Ugandan currently. This is just the net salary when the other juicy allowances aren’t counted.  The CFO is a Bcom graduate and has ACCA qualifications and 7 years experience of working with Datacom and telecom sectors. He was born on 20^th November 1978 and he is Kenyan and has worked with Soliton for 8 years now and is a Bcom graduate but also has a BMA. He has more than 12 years of doing accounting work in the Datacom and telecom setting. He is responsible for the overall financial performance of the company to make sure the multi-billion NITA deal is exhaustively exploited since telecom industry sources say there is no other country in East Africa where Soliton Telmec could ever get a deal so lucrative like NITA’s. Abdi Ali has previously worked with Zawan Insurance Broker as their financial accountant (February 2004-November 2005); Sahannet Ltd as F&A Manager (Dec 2005-June 2007) and Old Cambrian Ltd as a consultant (July 2007-March 2008) and after that he joined Soliton as CFO in April 2008 and this was at a time the company’s sales teams had started smelling the NITA deal in Uganda.  He fluently does English and Kiswahili.

3-Ali Maawly-The Chief Technical Officer is a graduate of Bsc Computer Science and has 8 years experience in datacom and telecom sectors. He was born on 4^th April 1980 and is a telecom engineer by training. He is a Kenyan citizen too and in the Soliton-NITA deal, he is responsible for ensuring all technical aspects are complied with. He has telecom and datacom experience of 13 years of working on projects for wireless, fiber transmission and network support applications. He has an MBA and a Bsc in Computer Science. He has previously worked with Kenya Data Networks as NOC Controller (2004-2010) and quit in 2011 to join Soliton Telmec when the NITA deal seemed imminent and was instantly elevated to Chief Technical Officer. He fluently speaks English and Kiswahili. His full names, on some of his documents, are Ali Mohammed Ali-Maawly.   He earns as follows; USD102,103 annually and he monthly pockets USD8,508 which come to more than 34m in Ugandan currently. This is just the net salary when the other juicy allowances aren’t counted.

4-Fatuma Omar-she is the Chief Operating Officer for Soliton and a graduate of BBA. She has 7 years experience in telecom environment in administration and HR areas. Her profession is administration and was, according to leaked NITA documents, born on 18^th June 1980. She is a Kenyan by nationality just like Abdirahman the CEO. She has worked with Soliton for 13 years and speaks fluent English and Kiswahili. She has a BBA (HRM) and an MBA; joined Soliton in June 2005 as office administrator and later became GM in 2009 up to 2012 when the NITA deal came in and she was elevated to COO. She earns as follows from the NITA-Soliton deal; USD102,103 annually and she monthly pockets USD8,508 which come to more than 34m in Ugandan currently. This is just the net salary when the other juicy allowances aren’t counted.

5-Hellen Longwe-She is the Chief Marketing Officer who oversees overall sales and marketing of Soliton products. She is a graduate of Bsc in Business Administration and has 9 years of experience in Datacom and Telecom sectors. She is Kenyan and was born on 22^nd October 1970 and has worked with Soliton for 9 years. She has an Executive Diploma in Sales & Marketing and is a certified project manager. Leaked NITA documents show her employment record as follows; Soliton Telmec as project manager (May 2008-May 2009), Soliton Telmec as General Manager Operations (June 2008-December 2010) and Soliton Telmec as GM Marketing and Sales (January 2011-todate).  From the NITA-Soliton deal, she annually earns USD102,103 and she monthly pockets USD8,508 which come to more than 34m in Ugandan currency. This is just the net salary when the other juicy allowances aren’t counted.

Other top Soliton Telmec company bosses who are swimming in Uganda taxpayers’ money are as follows;

6 James Mburu-who is the head of planning and is a graduate of Bsc Telecoms and IT and boasts of 8 years experience in datacom industry.

7 Iman Dahir- who is the head of implementation of programmes and is a graduate of computer science with 5 years experience in telecom sector.

8-Zahir Miyanji-who is the head of operations is a graduate of Bsc Technology electronics and communication engineering with 8 years experience in datacom sector as of 2016.

9-Nixon Lemlem-who is the head of quality assurance at Soliton and is a graduate of Bsc Geospatial Engineering with 5 years of experience in planning work. The contract requires that Soliton Telmec hires local staff (more than 80%) and ensure knowledge transfer which they haven’t done because when you visit their office, you see foreigners only and rarely any Ugandan is visible in top management positions.

SEE DETAILS IN THE TABLE REGARDING THE FULL SALARY SCALES AND STRUCTURE FOR THE REST OF SOLITON TELMEC EMPLOYEES WHO ARE SELDOM UGANDANS. 

Salary list of top Soliton managers_ lowest paid is a sales rep earning over 9.7m ($2,431 monthly_ $29,172 annually)

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