Kampala A new petition to President Museveni revealing ‘grave anomalies’ in the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the impending House probe into the breach of procedures, appear to cast a shadow over the official signing of the unprecedented $8.5 billion (about Shs22 trillion) deal expected to be sealed tomorrow. Four MPs have petitioned the President, Speaker of Parliament, the Prime Minister and the High Court of Uganda, warning against the signing of the disputed contract with China Habour Engineering Company (CHEC) before the House makes a decision on the alleged irregularities in the deal. Ministry faulted The MPs, who are expected to address a news conference today to give new evidence on the abuse of procedures ahead of the signing of the deal, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the ministry of Works picked a confidential report on mechanical and engineering designs by Gauff, a consultancy firm hired by the government, and gave it to CHEC to come up with its consultancy report to be used by same government in evaluating the company’s project proposal and the final contract. Lwemiyaga MP Theodore Ssekikubo, the lead petitioner, told this newspaper the Gauff report was supposed to be confidential-- an internal marking guide against the feasibility study that was to be done by CHEC before the official signing of the contract. He said the President had given the Works ministry three weeks to resolve all the technicalities involved, but all this was ignored. “We have petitioned the President for him to know the mess in the Standard Gauge Railway project. He has been on record accusing MPs of sabotaging the government projects and calling us enemies of recovery which is not the case,” Mr Ssekikubo said. Mr Ssekikubo, Wilfred Niwagaba (Ndorwa East), Bernabas Tinkasiimire (Buyaga West) and Paul Mwiru (Jinja Municipality East) also addressed their October 6 petition to the Attorney General and the Exim Bank of China trying to block funding to the project. Daily Monitor in August broke the story of how a junior minister on June 8, wrote terminating a Memorandum of Understanding between the government and China Civil Engineering and Construction Corporation (CCECC) for the upgrade of Uganda Railways’ eastern line. Court has since put on hold the minister’s actions. The latest development reinforces calls for an investigation into the alleged indiscretions of the SGR deal. Although the signing ceremony had previously been scheduled for October 8, it was temporarily put off to allow the contracts committee to go through the “nitty-gritty” of the deal. However, when contacted yesterday, the Minister for Works, Mr Abraham Byandala, told Daily Monitor “we are not anywhere close to the signing of that contract”. Minister speaks out While the petitioners said they had received information that “a high-profile decision” had been made to use the feasibility study by Gauff, Mr Byandala, whom they said “lacks information on what is going on”, said he had no control over the MPs petition and insisted, “the project has no problem”. “I’m getting ready to come to Parliament [any time] with the government explanation on the petition presented by Hon Ssekikubo and his group,” he said. Mr John Byabagambi, the State minister for Works, who is also the chairman of SGR ministerial committee, supports CHEC and is accused of cancelling the MoU the government had earlier signed with CCECC. Mr Byabagambi was not available to respond to fresh accusations that his committee had resolved to proceed without first allowing CHEC to conduct it’s own feasibility study and submitting engineering designs. On October 1, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga ordered the government to respond to allegations of influence peddling and conflict of interest in the railway deal within one week. The MPs had demanded that a select committee be set up to investigate the deal.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 04:47:54 +0000
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