The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Insider sources say some of the MPs had been tipped off that, as part of the Karuma corruption bonanza, powerful officials in the sector had recruited their relatives some of whom have minimal experience to become project leaders. The Committee summoned the questionable officials but they failed to show up.
Instead it is Kaliisa and Energy Minister Irene Muloni who appeared before the Committee armed with a letter from Attorney General William Byaruhanga warning parliament to back off from any investigations into Karuma and Isimba. In the Attorney General’s opinion contained in the letter, any investigation by parliament would, under the sub judice rule, be in contempt of the court hearing the Kyarimpa case. The Parliamentary Committee referred the Attorney General’s letter to the Speaker of Parliament for interpretation.
On Sept.27 a motion was tabled in parliament calling on legislators to push the government to take immediate and decisive steps to resolve the Karuma crisis.
More precisely, in that Sept 27 motion, parliament asked Kabagambe’s team at the Energy Ministry to hand over its administration powers for the Karuma and Isimba projects to Isabalijja’s team at UEGCL.
Tough times ahead
So the UEGCL boss, Isabalijja, strode into the meeting with confidence in his stride. He had just won a fight of six months against Kabagambe, Muloni and their team. Finally he had contract administration powers over Karuma and Isimba dams as directed by the President and parliament.
Previously, construction of electricity generation infrastructure has been a dominion of officials at the Energy Ministry. Going forward, it will be UEGCL which is currently headed by Harrison Mutikanga; a quiet engineer who made his bones in management at the National Water and Sewerage Corporation, which will handle two hot potato projects.
Mutikanga and Isabalijja have a tough time ahead.
As The Independent has reported in the past, the Karuma and Isimba projects are under scrutiny because of the alleged substandard works, procurement corruption, lack of adherence to standard employee welfare issue – including lack of basic items like toilets, and the failure to include a local content component in the resources being used.
Multiple investigators both from abroad and within have confirmed allegations of shoddy works by the Chinese contractors. The most recent team led by Prof. John Sentamu, whose report was published this July, also confirmed the shoddy works and warned that if the defects, the management and supervision are not dealt with early enough, the durability of the yet to be completed dams, hangs in balance.
Doubts have been cast on the ability of Energy Infratech, the Indian-based lead project supervisor, to get China’s Sinohydro, the contractor, to fix cracks in the concrete works and other poor works.
Both dams were initially estimated to cost government just over Shs7 trillion. But a high level independent audit of the two projects by the German firm, ILF Consulting Engineers, revealed they would require an extra Shs1.8 trillion to complete. The audit revealed that the Chinese contractors are allegedly cutting corners to save money. One of the reports reveals that the contractor might have saved upward of US$50 million as a result of cutting corners.
Kamal Gautam who wrote the report indicated that some of the extra cost is directly as a result of the tussle between the agencies involved in the implementation of the projects.
Isabalijja and Mutikanga must now find ways to implement several directives by President Museveni that have gone unattended to. On April 05, for example, Museveni issued a number of directives that Energy Ministry officials only partially implemented.
Museveni ordered a change of key project personnel of the Owners Engineer, the Project Managers and their deputies on both projects and the constitution and operationalisation of the Projects Steering Committee (PSC) and transfer of FULL projects contract administration powers to UEGCL.
Museveni followed this with a letter on July 23. The President wrote: “I am also aware that my directive in regard to the replacement of the Owners engineer’s key project personnel on both projects has not been implemented; I demand that the ministry asks the Owners Engineer to withdraw his current key project personnel from both projects and deploy personnel with requisite experience as those who were proposed at the bidding stage.”
The Independent understands that some of the key personnel of the Owners Engineer were changed. The Energy Ministry also handed over the contract administration powers for Karuma and signing for the contract administration of Isimba is also expected to be handled soon. With this, UEGCL will be fully in charge – at least on paper. The real battle, of keeping Museveni happy while doing direct battle with the Chinese contractors and their threats of withdrawing funding, can now start for Isabalijja and Mutikanga.
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editor@independent.co.ug
