Two of the four skip loaders received by Gulu City Council/ Photo by Jesse Johnson James
The procurement department had finalized the process of disposing of the missing Jinja City road equipment without the knowledge of the senior engineer in charge of mechanical engineering, Lydia Nabirye court heard on Wednesday.
While appearing before the Jinja City Grade One Court Magistrate, Linda Nakalema, Nabirye said that she first noticed the disappearance of two skip loaders registration numbers LG 0018-12 and UR 1602 on August 07th, 2022.
Nabirye was appearing as a prime prosecution witness in a case implicating some officials for the theft of the Jinja City road construction unit in August 2022. According to Nabirye, upon noticing the disappearance of the two loaders, she consulted the guards, who informed her how the then-acting Senior Law Enforcement Officer, Denis Bimbona, directed them to surrender the skip loaders to the new owners.
Nabirye told court that she contacted Bimbona to provide clarity about the new equipment owners, only to postpone their discussions about the same repeatedly, without arriving at a logical conclusion concerning the matter.
An excavator registration number UA 1269 together with a Service Utility Van-SUV also later vanished from the city yard on August 20th, 2022, prompting Nabirye to launch in-house inquiries to establish who exactly was behind the disappearance of the road construction unit. Nabirye said that one of the officials informed her that their superiors had initiated a procurement process to sell off the old road construction equipment in early 2022.
According to Nabirye, she contacted the Jinja City Procurement Officer, Janet Nabwonso, who informed her that they had invited open bids from interested parties to buy the equipment. She explained that Nabwonso further informed her that the bids had already been concluded and a successful bidder was pinned on the notice board but had failed to pay the bid amount within the agreeable period prompting them to cancel his bid.
According to Nabirye, after finalizing internal inquiries on the same, she contacted Bimbona, whom she says confessed to having prior knowledge about the missing equipment but preferred a physical meeting. She informed the court that, Bimbona endlessly postponed their planned meetings, prompting his arrest by the police.
Nabirye told the court that she is the overall supervisor of all motor vehicles and machinery in Jinja city and it was impossible for such equipment to be sold off without her knowledge. She noted that Bimbona’s operation in isolation led to the disappearance of the missing equipment. Bimbona denied claims that he confessed to having willfully released the missing road unit, insisting that he was not legally appointed to supervise the parking yard and that he lacks the jurisdiction to superintend over the operations there. Nakalema adjourned the matter for further hearing later today.
