Museveni’s hand in Amongi lands saga

Okello-Okello has also openly criticised Amongi for her role in facilitating government’s attempts to grab land in Amuru, northern Uganda. However, while on the Amuru land question he believes President Museveni’s government was using Amongi, her latest troubles appear her own making and intended for personal benefit.

Okello-Okello told The Independent that for the 20 years—ending 1997– he was a commissioner at the Lands Ministry, he would accompany the line minister to the custodian board.

“I had never seen a case where a Minister applied or took land from the board,” Okello-Okello said, “If members of the custodian board are doing that, then what is left of this board?”

Okello-Okello also served as a Member of Parliament under the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), a party that Amongi subscribes to and which is currently headed by her husband, Jimmy Akena, the son of former President Apollo Milton Obote.

Under Obote, Okello-Okello says, government took great care to ensure accountability of the Asian abandoned properties. Apparently, Obote had warned that if not well supervised, these properties would be a major source of corruption and he always made sure to supervise them.

Yusuf Nsibambi, the chairman, Kampala District Land Board, who has been at the centre of some of the disputes involving these properties, told The Independent that the challenges surrounding Asian properties are down to fraudulent and insider dealings at the Departed Asians Properties Custodian Board.

He faulted the board and the Finance Ministry, which oversees it, for messing up the process and delaying to wind up the board. In 2016, the Auditor General raised these concerns Nsibambi is raising over delay to wind up the board.

Nsibambi also noted that officials have frustrated efforts by some Asian owners to repossess their properties and have also outrightly sought to grab the same.

Apart from the fight with Nsibambi, Amongi now finds herself at the centre of another fight over another property. Several attempts to reach her for a comment on these matters were futile as she did not pick our calls.

In the latest case, she is being accused of attempting to grab four prime properties with in Kampala, through a company, Amobet Investments Ltd, which she says she co-owns with her sister.

Land Ministry officials have over the years been accused of fraud, corruption, forgery and abuse of office for years but if the evidence before the on-going land inquiry is anything to go by, Amongi might be the first Lands sitting minister whose hand has been caught in the till while in office.

Ironically, when President Museveni appointed her to head the docket one year and eleven months ago, many hoped that as an opposition politician, who had spent years criticizing government for corruption among others, she would bring some sanity to the ministry.

The case against Amongi erupted when on May 4, a one Toshak Patel testified before commission that Amongi, through a company called Amobet Investments Ltd, has been trying to grab his property located in upscale Kololo, Kampala.

The property in question was previously under the custodianship of DAPCB. Patel’s family repossessed the property in 1992 and has been renting it out as business premises.

However, on Dec.12 2017, Amongi’s employee, the managing director of Amobet, Henry Mubiru, applied for the same property and the DAPCB allocated it to the company.