Museveni locked in intelligence fight

Trapping Muhakanizi

For instance, on March 27, following an intelligence tip off, President Museveni had asked some State House agents to lay a trap for officials at the Ministry of Finance offices on Sir Apollo Kagwa Road in Kampala.

Museveni had received intelligence that two finance officials; Charles Ogol, the principal finance officer, and Geoffrey Turyamuhika, a senior economist, had solicited a Shs$500,000 bribe from an investor. According to the intelligence, the money was to be shared with the Secretary to the Treasury, Keith Muhakaniz and Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija who would take US$150,000 each and the junior officials US$100,000 each.

Since he could not trust any other agents, Museveni sent his own agents from State House who arrived at Finance by 8am with US$60,000 said to be first batch of bribe-bait money and waited for the targeted officials to arrive.

At 8:30am, Museveni’s men headed for the 7^th Floor, where Muhakanizi sits. Since they did not have an appointment with him, they attempted to get Muhakani’s attention by bumping into him. But Muhakanizi, known to be arrogant, just showed them out.

“I have no time,” Muhakanizi reportedly told them and walked away, “I have a meeting.”

The men resorted to plan B and headed to the offices of the officials they had already pinpointed– Ogol and Turyamuhika— and reportedly handed them the US $60,000. But the target remained Muhakanizi.  So they stayed on the premises, monitoring for the junior officers to take the money to Muhakanizi. They waited until 3:00pm in vain. Finally, they attempted another trick on Muhakanizi. Sources at Finance intimate that a call was made from Turyamuhika’s office to Muhakanizi’s office.

When Muhakanizi picked, the person on the other end was not talking. The plan was for Muhakanizi to implicate himself by asking Turyamuhika about the money. Instead Muhakanizi simply said: “What is it Turyamuhika?”

Realising the trick had not worked; the state agent who was holding the phone, said he was not Turyamuhika but a security officer. He told Muhakanizi that Turyamuhika was under arrest for taking a bribe. Ogol and Turyamuhika, were arrested at around 4:30 that day, jailed and released on bail a few days after.

The State House agents claimed that Muhakanizi was involved in soliciting the bribe but was tipped off about the trap, that is how he survived.  Museveni made a point to emphasise publicly that the Finance Ministry was “full of thieves”. This wasn’t the only case built on such intelligence.