The Uganda North American Association(UNAA) – the country’s oldest diaspora formal community is embroiled in a nasty financial scandal with less than a month left to the annual convention that will also elect a new administration after the turbulent two terms of Ms Henrietta Nairuba Wamala.
Ugandans in North America are warming up for this year’s convention in Dallas, Texas from 1- 4 September, 2023, which will also see a new president elected along with his governing officials. Ms Nairuba, who has been in office since September 2019, will be relinquishing power after the expiry of her two mandatory terms at the helm of the organisation.
Nairuba may, however, not enjoy the luxury of parking her bags in peace after it has emerged that her administration has been placed under an intense probe over allegations of fraud, lack of transparency and abuse of office, by concerned members of the Association.
A report recently released by celebrated US-based Ugandan Journalist, Rhemy Bahati has raised the dust on the four years scandalous tenure of Mrs Wamala and her team, including UNAA Presidential hopeful, Lambert Etibot who has been serving as the organisation’s Executive Secretary.
UNAA is run on an estimated $350,000 annual budget with $100,000 coming from the government of Uganda directly.
An intuitive investigation into the organisation’s finances over the years when Ms Nairuba has been at the helm of UNAA, has unearthed loads of clues to a possible rot , prompting a thorough probe.
The most contentious issue was the over-invoiced 2020 UNAA Convention, which Bahati argues there were deep disparities between what could have been spent and what was reported in the accounts submitted to the American tax body-Internal Revenue Services(IRS).
It ought to be remembered that in 2020, the annual event didn’t take place as has always been the case due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic and its associated regulations on social distancing. Rather, the convention was held virtually through the video conferencing platform- Zoom.
In the report available on the organisation’s financial reports on the official website, the event was allocated $7000 and indeed, $6476 was declared as what was spent for the online convention, about $524 less than the allocated budget.
To the shock of many, however, records available at the revenue collection body IRS indicate that UNAA had filed that they had used a whopping $275,237.00 (two handred seventy five thousand, two hundred thirty seven, United States dollars).
The report with the doctored figures were suspiciously prepared by Interdoc Processing Solutions, a firm based in Texas. A thorough search into who owns Interdoc further reveals something more sinister. A quick Google search shows that Interdoc is jointly owned by one Micheal David Kaluya who is registered as its Agent, Micheal Kaluya, Rose Kwikiriza, and Samuel Kaluya, are all registered Directors.
Interestingly, Micheal David Kaluya is a blood brother to former UNAA executive Secretary, Peter Mukunu who it is believed could have helped shield the firm to get the deal in exchange for some criminal cover. Inter doc also provides Visual and Audio Services to UNAA.
In her Audio communication released to the Ugandan Community in America, Bahati said she has opened a special investigation into any more possible irregularities at UNAA with the aim of promoting transperency. She also seeks an explaination from Ms Nairuba and her Executive Secretary Mr Etibot Lambert to elaborate on how such an unreasonable amount of money could have been used to organise an online convention, and where it could have come from since no records are provided on the official website to that effect.
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