URC CEO, Stanley Sendegeya
The Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) Board Chairman, Hannington Karuhanga told his close friends that he was frustrated the job had turned out more complicated than he thought.
The powerful tycoon was referring to the saga which saw him sweat before the IGG investigators who were at URC to inquire into the circumstances under which Stanley Sendegeya was recruited as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), replacing Charles Kateeba.
The CEO job advert required a master’s degree as a minimum and six years of experience as a member of top management both of which Sendegeya lacked. He had been chief finance officer at URC for four years as opposed to six.
Before URC, he was the Manager Collections at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and was many positions away from directly reporting to the Commissioner General.
Between him and CG were the Assistant Commissioner and full Commissioner. This means he can’t count any of the years at URA as covering him up for the relevant top managerial experience that was required in the advert for the URC CEO Job.
When it comes to the requirement for a master’s degree, still Sendegeya was below par because he had a BCOM degree and some ACCA qualifications which can’t give him the master’s degree equivalent.
It’s against this background that a whistle blower recently reported to the IGG asking for an inquiry. Claiming that some board members and Deloite officials who conducted the recruitment didn’t act independently, the whistle blower wanted the IGG to invalidate the recruitment and order a fresh process.
As part of the investigations, the IGG has been summoning and interrogating URC board members to explain themselves on the alleged conflict of interest. The Board Chairman Karuhanga has been grilled already and the same applies to Sendegeya and Ben Twodo who chairs the HR committee of the board.
Twodo , who is a very old retired accountant had wanted the IGG to receive a joint explanation from Board members, a request which was rejected and the IGG insisted to interrogate each board member separately.
Some board members, who didn’t want Sendegeya to become the CEO have given the IGG a lot of dirty information showing the entire recruitment was skewed to favor Sendegeya.
Sources at the IGG reveal that one of the board members said some of them opposed the giving of the job to Sendegeya but they were overpowered by Twodo who even brought in Deloitte to do the needful as opposed to KPMG which had a better recruitment proposal.
The IGG is also wondering why immediately after making Sendegeya the CEO, Deloitte was paid close to 100m to do consultancy work advising on job restructuring at URC.
This same restructuring consultancy had already been undertaken by Dama Consultants which is based at Uganda House and their report had contents not different from what Deloitte came up with. The IGG is also wondering why the board allowed spending 100m on Deloitte when Dama Consultants’ balance hadn’t been paid and the old Kenyan man who owns it even went to court.
The Board members have been squeezed to explain why they gave the job to someone without a master’s degree and enough experience when there are other applicants like Eng. Reuben Tumwebaze who had worked in Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) and Andrew Kilama Lajul from Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), who were more than qualified.
Apart from Karuhanga, other board members include Moses Mwase, Keen Twesigye, David Kapsunduy, Ben Twodo, Jowali Kyeyago, Hajjat Aphwa Sebyala and Patrick Kabunapuchi who is always very cautious on doing the right thing.
The inquiry into the CEO recruitment has led the IGG to realize more grey areas that must be inquired into including the billions paid to the lawyers like Kituma Magala, Noel Muhangi of Kagumire advocates and Andrew Kibaya who works with Shonubi Musoke advocates. Some of the lawyer-related deals the IGG is looking into include the Shs34bn from UNRA as compensation for the railway land in Nsambya that was encroached on during the construction of the fly over project. Some of these payments of legal fees have been opposed by the Works Minister based at Port Bell Road and the IGG wants Sendegeya to answer why they keep going ahead with such deals.
The IGG probe which may result into some people being sent to Luzira is taking place at a time State House is also inquiring into the reasons why Sendegeya tried to lay off many employees a few days to voting day, something which made candidate Museveni very unpopular among hundreds of workers for URC. The works Minister got a phone call from State House to work with MPs like Agnes Kunihira to stop the expulsion of staff on humanitarian grounds.
Museveni can’t stand anyone messing up the railways because he wants the railway system quickly revamped so that he uses it to transport heavy equipment to the Albertine region to get the oil out of the ground.
The President fears that because that petroleum equipment is very heavy, it can destroy all the roads which have cost trillions if it’s to be transported via road means.
It’s the reason why a lot of money has been borrowed to reinvest in Uganda Railway Corporation to enable it spearhead the revamp of the railway transport especially between Kampala and Malaba and between Malaba and Gulu-all the way to Pakwach which near Albertine region which has the oil.
The bad management practices at URC recently forced employees to go on strike which resulted into clients like Mukwano Group, GBHL, Roofings and Spedag, which use the railway means and wagons to transport cargo and merchandize from Mombasa to Kampala, to threaten taking URC to court. Still State House had to intervene.
There are also scandals of land grabbing whereby Sendegeya is accused of not doing enough with his godfathers to have workers like senior legal officer Grace Opoka sanctioned for alleged wrongdoing.
Such employees are supposed to be investigated because that is what Minister Katumba Wamala called for while ordering for their conduct to be investigated concerning URC land. Katumba has been writing letters to Sendegeya asking him to investigate staff who mess up with URC land but the CEO hasn’t been very keen about this issue.
Katumba says a whistle blower informed him that several acres of URC land in Lira was at risk of being grabbed by URC staffers unless some quick action is taken.
Some of the investigations have been done by Police land protection unit whose officers like D/AIP Francis Tshombe Omony and Charles Mutungi have been investigating and writing reports which Sendegeya hasn’t been implementing to make the grabbing of URC land risky.
This has angered State House and the President sees it as sabotage aimed at failing his plans to revamp the railway network for Uganda.
