As each day passes by, events of the saga of the stolen, squandered, and mishandled properties of the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) escalates.
Between 2000 and 2017, it’s alleged that properties worth trillions of shillings were lost to unknown personnel.
The current leadership of the UCA has in their recent Investigations pinned the former leadership of Nimrod Wambete the Chairperson of the Board and Leonard Musimakweli who are alleged to be the masterminds of these properties vanishing.
Among the properties that were sold is the Bugolobi Housing and Land that was sold to Lamba Properties.
The said land had five housing units and prime land.
Selling
In 2010, the leadership of Wambete upon assuming power, started by selling off this property to Lamb Enterprise.
Sale documents seen by DaParrot indicate that the Bugolobi prime properties were sold to Lamba Enterprise at $1.27m (Approximately Ss4.7Bn).
“This property was worth $3m but the way it was sold to Lamb Enterprise was fraudulent,” said Tumuhaise the lead lawyer of UCA from Kampala Associates Advocates.
In reiteration to Tumuhaise’s statements, Chrispus Muke Mubale the Public Relations Officer of UCA told DaParrot that “there is no way you can deceive people, especially the owners of the property (Cooperative Unions) when you sold without their knowledge,”
Wambete has on several occasions denied selling the property without the Union’s knowledge.
“When I came in as the Chairperson of the UCA in 2010, I found plans to dispose of the Bugolobi property by the former AGM, and the proceeds of the land were to be used to develop the apartments in Naguru,” he said adding,
“The reason for disposing of the land was that Bugolobi was underdeveloped and the lease was running out. The Board was given authority and it was done through competitive bidding and Lam Enterprise because the highest bidder in 2010, the money was transferred to the UCA account and did what it was meant to do,”
Funds Swayed from UCA Account
According to Documents seen by DaParrot, the sale of the Bugolobi prime properties was effected on November 27, 2010.
The payments were later effected in three phases directly to the UCA and by early 2011, a tune of $1.27m had been deposited in the account.
However, within nine months, the funds had been withdrawn to zero, starting with $470,000 on March 24, 2011.
“You wonder why these big chunks of money were being withdrawn, without a clear plan and in such a short period of time,” Ivan Asiimwe, the UCA secretary general told DaParrot.
“To sum it all up, let Wambete provide the minutes that authorized him to sell the properties and all this will be done,” he added.
Asiimwe further told DaParrot that the current leadership of UCA is paying a 20-year loan that was acquired by Wambee leadership to develop the Naguru-based properties which, Wambete claims to have used the money he sold Bugolobi prime properties to develop.
“Charles Kabuga the former SG left a lot of UCA properties intact on December 22, 1999. But during my handover in 2017, I was given an unclear file, not until we discovered this Report that we swing into action and started Investigating and recovering some of these properties,” Asiimwe added.
“Over UCA 150 properties, the majority being land was lost and several sold fraudulently,” he said
Wambete however insisted that the resolution to sell Bugolobi properties was made way back in 2005-2006 by Mukasa-led Board as part of a sustainability plan that was approved by the AGM.
“The records are at UCA, the custodian of documents. We sold for USD 1.2. If the agreement was altered, could have been to avoid taxation,”
On the loan, Wambete said that the money obtained from the Bugolobi prime properties was not enough and could only cover maybe 70% of Naguru developments, the reason for the loan.
“Again you can cross-check contract cost 1.2 and with Musemakweli because I had left,” he said
Efforts to reach Musimakweli were futile as he didn’t pick up our repeated calls on the matter.
DaParrot also looked for Lamb enterprise to get a comment about the process of purchase of the property but their known phone numbers were off.
However, Muke told DaParrot this week that they are in advance plans of writing to the former Wambete and his colleagues to come and explain the whereabouts of the properties.
“The property of cooperatives can’t be disposed of like that. The 53rd AGM asked the current Board to investigate what exactly happened to the properties of UCA and after unearthing the truth, the recent 54th AGM recommended the summoning of individual personalities who sold the properties to come and explain who authorized them to sell them,” he said.
DaParrot will keep you posted on each and every development.
