Cabinet disapproves Anite’s plan, confirms Bemanya as UTL boss

The chaos and murmurs involving the Investment Minister, Hon. Evlyne Anite, and UTL Administrator Mr Twebaze Bamanya is close to calming down after the Cabinet made a rather shocking move to block the minister’s plan and instead ask Bemanya to continue his work as the telecom’s director.

In a letter dated 3rd July, addressed to Honourable Kahinda Otafire – the Jutice and Constitutional Affairs minister, President Museveni had 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.

Less than a day later, Hon. Otafire has taken action and has written to Mr Bemanya on the way to follow in regards to the “revamping of Uganda Telecom”.

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I have received guidance from H.E. the President of the Republic of Uganda on this matter and hereby direct you as follow:

1. Uganda Telecom is of strategic importance to the economy and you are required to ensure that it is not liquidated.
2. As the administrator of the company, you are requested to expedite the process of sourcing a strategic investor.
3. You are required to continuously update me on the progress to enable me report to cabinet accordingly.

You can read the letter that Hon. Otafire wrote to Bemanya here.

An end to the UTL saga?

You remember that Ms Anite recently wrote to the Attorney General directing for the firing of Mr Twebaze Bemanya as the administrator of UTL. Ms Anite asked him to get immediate replacement for Mr Bemanya, citing that all the concerned parties have lost confidence in him as the administrator and thus cannot work with him anymore.

The Attorney General instead blocked the removal of the administrator citing that “there are no grounds to remove the administrator of UTL from office”. In response, while assuring the Attorney General’s office that her directive to fire Mr Bemanya must be put to effect, Ms Anite referred to the matter as a “Presidential directive”.

With cabinet now standing for the UTL administrator and asking him to boldly look out for a suitable investor for the company, it is clear who has lost out on this. We can only wait on what follows.

You can also read about: A brief timeline of Uganda Telecom’s woes