The UTL saga is so far from over. The state-owned telco has literary been in the news for every other week since June with queries back and forth regarding its management and who should be in charge.
The latest on the company indicates that Investment minister Ms. Evelyn Anite has written to the Internal Auditor General at the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to conduct an immediate audit of Uganda Telecommunications Limited [UTL].
The letter dated July 24 is a followup of President Museveni’s letter that gave the minister the green light to go ahead and have the telecom firm audited after he had “heard of some allegations”
In her letter, Ms. Anite asks the Internal Auditor to “ensure the internal audit ls comprehensive enough to confirm or clear allegations”.
Arising from H.E the President’s letter ref: PO/10 dated 16% July, 2019 addressed to me, to institute an audit of UTL activities (copy attached).
I’m accordingly directing you to conduct an internal audit of UTL activities and evaluate the state of affairs within a period of one month from the date of receipt of this letter.
Please ensure the internal audit ls comprehensive enough to confirm or clear allegations before HE. the President.
Background of the UTL saga
Towards the end of June, Investment Minister Hon. Evelyn Anite told members of Parliament that the government no longer had control of UTL Operations. She further informed the MPs that the government no longer has access to the company premises and thus can’t do any audits or understand how this company is currently run.
The company administrators, led by Bemanya Twebaze, denied all the accusations that the minister made insisting that they never refused any government official from accessing UTL premises nor did they deny them them the right to audit the company as was alleged.
Ms Anite quickly responded with a directive asking the Attoney General’s office to fire Mr Twebaze from the position of administrator of UTL, something that the AG instead blocked citing that “there are no grounds to remove the administrator of UTL from office”.
The back and forth letters that were exchanged proved to be a war of authority which would only be intervened by the President, under whose power all the ministers were appointed.
In a letter dated 3rd July, addressed to Honourable Kahinda Otafire – the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, President Museveni asked that no action other than what was resolved by the Cabinet should be taken in regards to UTL. The letter didn’t not indicate which resolution cabinet had come to but it stated that the President and Hon. Otafire had engaged in a telephone conversation about the issue.
A day later, Hon. Otafire wrote to Mr Bemanya on the way to follow in regards to the “revamping of Uganda Telecom”.
You can also read about: A brief timeline of Uganda Telecom’s woes
