As he prepares to leave his job as the Deputy Director General at the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), Dr Paul Kyalimpa has made it clear he will not refund the Shs58m he received as honoraria for supervising works at the Namanve Industrial Park Development Project. Defying his supervising minister Evelyn Anite, the junior minister in charge of investment and privatisation, Dr Kyalimpa says government institutions should be allowed to investigate the matter first.
The Shs58m that Kyalimpa received was part of the Shs545m that several UIA staff, including Director General Robert Mukiza, got for their work. With the consortium contracted to supervise the works failing to clear project designs and assessments hence delaying the start of construction works at the Namanve Industrial Park, UIA took a decision to terminate its contract at the end of August 2022. The consortium included: Roughton International Ltd., Turner and Townsend International Ltd., Joadah Consult Ltd., and Basic Group Ltd.
In the place of the project management consortium, UIA officials stepped in to supervise project works for which the project contractor, Lagan Dott, disbursed about Shs545m to them for their services.
Minister Anite vowed to make UIA staff to cough the money, arguing that they cannot earn honoraria off a loan that Ugandans will be have to pay with interest.
But Dr Kyalimpa insists that the honoraria was in line with provisions of the Namanve Industrial Park Development Project manual which ‘provides for the deployment of UIA staff and other experts to support it supervise the work.”
“It provides that the staff from UIA who will be deployed shall be given honoraria in accordance with the human resource manual,” said Kyalimpa, making it clear that he was not about to willingly return the Shs58m he was awarded. “You leave [the issue of returning or keeping the money] to be sorted by government systems, agencies and institutions. They will assess and tell if there is an issue.”
He added that in the scenario where investigators find that the money was paid “wrongly,” government has “the means of recovering the money.”
He has been “allowed” a few more months to serve until August, which is “a few months” to the end of his contract at UIA. He also made it clear that he submitted his resignation letter in May 2024 “before these issues came up and were talked about.” He “got some other engagement contract” beginning after August “which does not require me to be a public officer.”
You can read more on why Kyalimpa, an Ex-Matia Kasaija opponent, wants to resign from UIA as Deputy Director General, a job he controversially landed in 2020 after pulling out of the race against the finance minister Here.
You can also see how much each UIA official received from the Sh545m service award (honoraria), and how it has created a war of words between Minister Anite and UIA officials, including UIA Director General Robert Mukiza who reported her to President Museveni Here and There.
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