Since it was signed by ex­perts, I signed – Syda Bbumba

Kampala, Uganda | PWATCHUG| For­mer En­ergy Min­is­ter, Syda Bbumba has feigned ig­no­rance of the con­tent in an oil pro­duc­tion shar­ing agree­ment that led to a $157 mil­lion tax waiver to Tul­low Oil Com­pany.

Bbumba is in the eye of the storm af­ter Pres­i­dent Yow­eri Mu­sev­eni, while meet­ing leg­is­la­tors on the Com­mis­sions, Statu­tory Au­thor­i­ties and State En­ter­prises (COSASE) re­cently, ac­cused the Nakaseke North MP of in­sert­ing a clause in the pro­duc­tion shar­ing agree­ment that al­lowed Tul­low to re­ceive the tax waiver for an out of court set­tle­ment.

Pres­i­dent Mu­sev­eni told the MPs in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Ugx 6 bil­lion hand­shake pay­ment to 42 gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that Bbumba, who served as min­is­ter be­tween 2006 and 2008, signed the agree­ment with­out his knowl­edge yet she had no pow­ers to give the ex­emp­tion.

The mat­ter also came to the fore af­ter a con­sor­tium of civil so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, while ap­pear­ing be­fore COSASE in Feb­ru­ary this year, pre­sented ev­i­dence, pin­ning gov­ern­ment for il­le­gally giv­ing the tax waiver to Tul­low with­out fol­low­ing due process.

The com­mit­tee, led by Bug­w­eri County MP, Abdu Katuntu, talked early this week to Bbumba, who was invited to de­fend her­self against the al­le­ga­tions.

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