At least four staff of Parliament are in trouble for alleged breach of the oaths of allegiance and secrecy. They are Julian Kaganzi, the Head of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Unit, Robinson Kaweesa, a driver, Julius Wabwire, and Benson Oninz Masereka.
They are accused of leaking official documents to undermine the integrity of the House. The quartet was implicated in leaking documents relating to the purchase of ceremonial vehicles for Speaker Anita Among and her Deputy Thomas Tayebwa that cost the taxpayers a whopping Shillings 2.88 billion.
Trouble for the four started when Adolf Kasaija Mwesige, the Clerk of Parliament asked the Divisional Criminal Intelligence Department to investigate the source of the leakage.
In the memo to the police, Mwesige noted that the parliamentary Commission was concerned about the leakage of an official/confidential document that was shared via the Twitter handle of a private person @AAgather apparently with malicious intentions to bring the institution of Parliament to disrepute.
He cited the leakage of the April 4th, 2022 letter from his office to the Executive Director of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority – PPDA, a regulatory body for public procurement and disposal in Uganda.
The letter was on the subject of ceremonial vehicles of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, and another March 28th, 2022 letter addressed to the Clerk to Parliament from the sourced bidder (Albeity Ltd) that was making rounds on social media.
It is upon this background that the investigations vide Parliamentary Police Division GEF027/2022 commenced in pursuance of Article 212 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda with the ultimate target of reporting police findings to the Clerk to Parliament.
On June 13th, 2022, a team of detectives led by Detective Assistant Superintendent of Police, Charles Mansio Twiine, the Criminal Investigations Department embarked on investigations to establish how the documents leaked out.
The objectives of the investigations was to identify the documents that were leaked on social media, establish the person(s) that unlawfully leaked them and their intentions, gather sufficient evidence against the culprits for relevant action, and report findings to the Clerk to Parliament as well as consulting the Office of the Director Public Prosecution – ODPP on appropriate action.
For the effective and efficient disposal of the case, the investigators would use an intelligence-led operation and interview the witnesses and suspects, search the scene of the crime where photographs of the leaked documents were allegedly taken from, and scientifically profile the exhibits.
Police Findings
According to the final report, a copy of which journalists has seen, the team was able to establish that the leaked documents were indeed an official April 4th, 2022 letter written by the Clerk to Parliament to the Executive Director of PPDA on the subject of Ceremonial vehicles of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, and a March 28th, 2022 letter addressed to the Clerk to Parliament from the sourced bidder (Albeity Ltd) ‘which were not for public consumption at all.’
The letter to PDDA was served by the driver, Steven Kateregga who immediately gave the received copy that was later leaked to Agatha Atuhaire, a journalist (BBC Correspondent in Uganda) attached to Parliament.
“In his own confession, Kaweesa revealed to the detectives that he was the one who leaked the two documents to Atuhaire, a friend whom he had known previously as a journalist working at Parliament. Kaweesa asserted that he provided the information about the ‘mishandled’ procurement of the two ceremonial cars, but only needed the documentary evidence, which he provided,” read part of the report.
The report says Kaweesa revealed to the investigators that he photographed the documents from his living room at his home in Kira Municipality in Wakiso District using his cell phone and forwarded them to Atuhaire shortly after she had been challenged by the Director of Communications at Parliament, Chris Obore on Twitter.
The investigators confirmed Kaweesa’s confession, saying that the duo had talked about the documentary evidence the journalist requested based on their phone records. Also, upon a search at Kaweesa’s residence recently, the background of a sofa set and the tiles were identified as similar to the photo that was shared on Atuhaire’s Twitter handle which he (Kaweesa) voluntarily showed to the investigators.
The scientific imaging of Kaweesa’s phone by the Directorate of Forensic Services in the Uganda police, clearly confirmed that the telephone set Galaxy S6+ that belonged to Kaweesa is the real phone that took the picture on June 5th, 2022, which was later deleted only to be restored in the forensic laboratory.
The report also shows that Kaweesa had stored Atuhaire’s number as Freddie Ssekabira to conceal the real owner. According to the investigators, Kaweesa didnt show any remorse for his action, saying that he was paying back the new Parliamentary Commission management for mishandling his deployment.
“He (Kaweesa) justified his argument that he was being pushed away from the office by the Speaker Anita Among and Herbert Ariko, the Principal Private Secretary to the Speaker to execute their corrupt practices,” the report said.
The investigators observed that the leakage of the documents was deliberate and intended to blackmail the new Parliamentary Commission leadership apparently as a reprisal by Kaweesa for having been removed from the office of the Deputy Speaker and later from the Contracts Committee.
The team also observed that the former Contracts Committee members are clandestinely up in arms and using all possible means to hurt the Parliamentary Commission by revealing any information to the media or other legitimate statutory investigators.
Equally, the team observed that the dispatch and custody of some of such critical documents are not proper, and therefore susceptible to leakage and manipulation. For instance, it looked so irregular for the letters in question to be dispatched by a driver who does not have any training in the security of documents that tantamount to insensitivity or another leakage in the future.
The team also noticed constant communication between Kaweesa, whose emotions are already raptured, Julius Wabwire, and Oninz Benson Masereka, both of whom have been identified as Parliamentary Staff although their voice calls have not been examined.
The report notes that given the character of Kaweesa, who has vowed to fight on, the pattern and duration of time of calls he made with the two numbers within the period of the leakage of the documents raises suspicion, which management and intelligence should put focus on.
The investigators also found it strange that Julian Kaganzi, the Head of Procurement and Disposal Unit confessed to having passed over the two documents of Abeity Limited and the PPDA letter to Kaweesa on April 28th, 2022. “Such seems to have been an act of conspiracy or insensitivity which the ODPP needs to be consulted over whether it warrants prosecution,” read Atwine’s report.
The investigators observed that Atuhaire has a personal hatred for the institution of Parliament and has continued to run several hate programs on various electronic platforms both TV and online websites but is majorly fed information by a cross-section of people within Parliament.
Conclusion
The investigators concluded that the leaked information that was shared on Twitter was among the other pieces of information that Kaweesa leaked to Atuhaire, who they note was negligent in shielding her source and ended up sharing the document that left some traces of evidence.
Recommendation
The investigators recommended that the Parliamentary Commission uses its internal mechanism to bring the culprits to order in pursuance of the Public Standing orders as well as the Parliamentary Staff Regulations.
“Upholding this view will inevitably mitigate the bad practice of sharing documents to unauthorized persons with impunity,” the report said. The evidence available also clearly indicates that Kaganzi aided the commission of a crime by deliberately sharing a document with Kaweesa alone on April 28th, 2022, which reflects a case of a conspiracy by aiding and abetting.
“We also recommend that the other two officers who include; Wabwire and Masereka be monitored closely considering the fact that their closeness with Kaweesa who has vowed to completely undermine the Parliamentary Commission,” the report said.
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