Court asked to block gov’t from paying UGX 647 billion loan

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A concerned citizen Brian Kasaija has petitioned the High Court seeking an order compelling the government not to repay 175 Million Dollars obtained from the World Bank eight years ago.

According to Kasaija, the loan which is equivalent to 647.5 Billion Shillings was obtained illegally by the government to fund the Second Kampala Institutional and Infrastructure Development Programme Phase II because Parliament passed a resolution to borrow it without the necessary quorum way back in 2014.

The 2005 Parliamentary Rules of Procedure require one-third of all Members of Parliament entitled to vote and required at a time when Parliament is voting on any question.

But the evidence before the court shows that the Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA which has been sued alongside the government sent a loan request to the Cabinet without a lawfully constituted authority governing body as required under the law. In the aftermath, the loan was approved and further forwarded to parliament by the then State Minister for Finance, Planning and Economic Development Aston Kajara on July 9th, 2014 for approval.

As a result, the evidence shows that Parliament on December 19th, 2014 chaired by the then Deputy Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah allegedly passed a resolution to authorize the government to borrow the loan from the International Development Association of the World Bank Group without the requisite quorum of two-thirds of the MPs.

According to the hansard that has been attached as evidence to the case, 77 Members of Parliament which is one-third of 229 MPs were supposed to vote on the matter, but only 63 members voted.

The records further indicate that the loan was to be paid for 40 years effective 2024. But the petitioner states that this continuously threatens the right to property and all Ugandans must pay it through legitimate and lawful payment of direct and indirect taxes which is their liquid asset.

Further, Kasaija also states that the actions and omissions amounted to an infringement and violation of the right to good governance.

“Absence of requisite quorum to enable the vote on the resolution authorizing government of the Republic of Uganda to borrow, made and rendered the loan resolution not only null and void but also non-binding to the humbly humbled applicant and the greatly humbled people of the Republic of Uganda as by law established hence a violation, infringement and threat to the rights nobly enumerated afore”, reads the suit in part.

Kasaija now wants the court to declare that the loan was illegally passed by Parliament and an advisory opinion is issued to the government to institute an Independent Political Standards Authority -IPSA to oversee the conduct of Parliament and members with a view of safeguarding and promoting good governance in a wider public interest among other orders.

Asked why he has opted to petition court two days after Oulanyah being elected as the Speaker of Parliament to replace Rebecca Kadaga, Kasaija said that his case is not filed in bad faith because matters of holding people accountable have no expiry date.

In 2015, another concerned citizen Moses Muhumuza filed a relatively similar case before the Constitutional Court and the matter is pending determination.

Uganda’s debt at the moment currently stands at more than 40 trillion shillings meaning that each Ugandan would have to pay 1.5 million shillings if the debt was to be cleared at once.

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