The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
The auditors had pointed out that they could not tell whether Mr. Krishnamurthy was the suitably qualified Project Director. Henry Bidasala-Igaga, a Principal Energy Officer, writing on behalf of the Energy ministry Permanent Secretary Kaliisa Kabagambe on Feb.13 2015, had approved Krishnamurthy and Saxena’s deployment without any questions.
Instead of solving a problem, however, replacing them appears to have created new problems. The new Infratech staff is more expensive and Uganda is shouldering the added cost. The new Projector Director, one Velusamy Vasu, is now paid a whopping US$$20,500 per month (Approx. Shs69 million).
In another case, after the audit found that one S.K. Saxena, lacked hands on industry experience to qualify as the Head of the OE for a project like Karuma, he was not sacked. Instead an additional cost was added as one Brajesh Kumar Ojha was hired as Head of Project OE and Saxena as his deputy. In the payroll padding process, another top official, Bashishtha Rai, also became a deputy to new hire Dhruva Chakravorty.
But these adjustments didn’t come free or cheap. For replacing people not suitable for the job, government had to pay Energy Infratech more. The new contract would require an extra 14 billion ($4.2 million and Shs. 1.4 billion). This brings Energy Infratech’s dues to a staggering Shs 44 billion or 46% above budget.
In March 2015, the Energy Ministry Accounting officer, Paul Mubiru wrote to the solicitor general requesting clearance of the amendment of Infratech’s contract. The staff were fired or shifted after the June audit. On November 25, 2015, the Energy Ministry Accounting officer, Paul Mubiru wrote to UEGCL informing them that Infratech had communicated the staff changes to the ministry. Mubiru copied officials at UETCL and UEGCL in separate communications about these replacements.
Yet despite all this, it turns out that Infratech still appears not to have hired people with the right qualifications. The new hires are now being blamed for looking on as the contractor did alleged shoddy work. This includes visible defects in the dam concrete works, including using of stiff concrete which results in poor filling and what engineers call `honey combs’, concrete that is laid too late resulting so-called `cold joints’, and unsealed holes on formworks, defects on draft tubes, which is a major conduit to the dam turbines and has a direct on energy generation efficiency. A team that investigated Energy Infratech’s team this April found that Infratech staff still lack qualifications and experience. This prompted President Museveni to direct the Owner’s Engineer—Energy Infratech to immediately withdraw the project management teams on Karuma and Isimba and deploy experienced and committed professionals. President Museveni wrote on April. 5. It was the second time the President was writing on the issue.
In an earlier March 22 letter, Museveni had directed Infratech to either reinforce or even dismiss unqualified staff..
“Reinforcing them, at the minimum, would mean giving them other actors that had to co-sign the completion forms before payments are made,” President Museveni noted.
“I demand prompt action,” he added. However, no action was taken.
UEGCL costs
Meanwhile, UEGCL is also incurring costs of consultants to supervise the same dams. After it allegedly became convinced that Energy Infratech was not doing a great supervising job, UEGCL hired two consulting firms—AF Consult and SMEC— to do supervisory work. UEGCL, through the two companies, also hired a panel of experts with experience in supervising dams. It has plans to add a professor or two from Makerere University on its team and hire more engineers, The Independent has learnt.
That meant the projects now had three layers of supervising engineers; those from the Ministry of Energy, those from the OE- Infratech, and teams from SMEC and AF Consult acting on behalf of UEGCL. What appears to be duplication in supervising the projects means additional cost.
On Feb.29, the UEGCL MD, Harrison Mutikanga wrote to Kabagambe Kaliisa requesting additional funds. He noted that failure to release the funds by the ministry had affected his work. UEGCL in 2015 had a budget of about Shs10 billion to supervise Karuma and Isimba. However, they were given only Shs1.6 billion and Shs 300 million. The balance amounting to Shs8 billion had not been released by February this year.
“This situation has adversely impacted our operations to the effect that we are unable to pay the Project Management Consultants (PMC) who have been recruited to support us in the project implementation and related staff salaries from March 2016 going forward,” Mutikanga wrote. Mutikanga’s team is the one that exposed the alleged shoddy works on the dams.
The other issue is that the Energy Ministry appointed project coordinators; Henry Bidasala-Igaga for Karuma and Cecilia Menya for Isimba appear `over-qualified’. They are at the level of commissioners in the Energy ministry and according to `house rules’ are not supposed to be project coordinators because they are stationed at the ministry not the site.
“To coordinate projects of this magnititude,” an official noted, “you cannot sit at the ministry and wait, you must be based at the site. These two rarely go to the site.”
