Kween County MP-elect William Chemonges
Police’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) based in Kireka has started investigations into real estate dealings involving Kween County MP-elect William Chemonges. The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Martin Okoth Ochola ordered SIU to conduct the probe after victims petitioned him citing fraud allegations against the MP-elect.
The Kireka based real estate giant is accused of defrauding his would-be clients by often selling one piece of land a multiplicity of times and thereby depriving buyers.
There are many such cases or complaints against Chemonges which have over the years been filed against his Kireka-based Wiljon Estates with police but one of the victims (a top city banker) recently escalated matters by reporting to the IGP directly.
The banker had sold his residence in Mbalwa to Chemonges who for many years has been into the business of buying and re-selling houses mostly to MPs.
Chemonges allegedly didn’t pay up all the money and defaulted yet he had already taken possession of the swanky residence which the banker abandoned after realizing the compound didn’t come out well as he wanted. Chemonges paid the money but stayed with a balance of Shs15m which he failed to pay and eventually surrendered a low-value plot of land in deep rural villages of Mukono.
As the banker chased for his balance after a valuation report put the rural Mukono land at Shs4m as opposed to the Shs15m that was pending, Chemonges came up with a very tempting deal. This was a prime piece of land his company was selling on top of Kireka Hill near Kabaka’s palace.
The banker was looking for another property having been let down by the one in Mbalwa and was once again approached by a one Rogers, who he initially didn’t know was Chemonges’ agent. This was in 2018 and the banker parted with his hard-earned Shs150m.
Because Chemonges, who had bought the Kireka hill land from the owners of Mukono based Jobia hotel couldn’t immediately produce the title, the two signed an agreement indicating he would get the balance of Shs50m upon delivery of the title. Eventually, Chemonges rescued the title from the bank [UGAFODE] and upon getting it, he played hide and seek with the banker who had already put up 9 rental apartment units on the Kireka hill land.
He put the rentals after Chemonges assured him all was well and that the title would be delivered.
Instead, when he finally got the title from the bank, Chemonges went behind the banker’s back and sold the same land for the second time. The innocent 2nd buyer was Emmanuel Bakama, a wealthy UPDF soldier, who parted with Shs282m and Chemonges secretly passed over to him the title which had been deposited in UGAFODE.
The neighbors raised a red flag warning Bakama that the land he had bought belonged to someone else [the banker]. They told him about the banker who they saw developing the plot from scratch to eventually put up those modern rental apartments.
As the banker struggled to look for Chemonges to inquire why he hid from him the title only to eventually give it to Bakama simply because he paid him more money, the soldier turned up warning the banker never to trespass on his property.
The banker, who is also well connected, tried to cause the arrest of Chemonges only to be blocked by a powerful police man called SSP Chemonges who threatened to crush anyone who tried to arrest his friend William.
When he realized the banker was more connected than he had thought, William Chemonges decided to call in his best friend Maj Jimmy whose wife is a powerful Colonel attached to State House. It was then that the banker was advised to petition the IGP directly since he clearly had a good case.
Ochola assigned his PA on legal affairs Fred Paul Mirondo to liaise with Kireka based SIU to ensure William Chemonges and the police officers who were protecting him to mistreat his innocent victims are apprehended and brought to book.
That is how GEF/118/2020 of SIU Kireka was opened up to guide the general criminal investigations into all the land transactions Chemonges has curiously been conducting for the past more than 10 years.
The IGP was shocked to learn that this actually wasn’t the first time defrauding-related complaints were being lodged with SIU against Chemonges. Some aides had advised the IGP to broaden the investigations to look into the circumstances under which an outgoing female MP months earlier had hired ‘Kanyamas’ travelling in a drone to confine Chemonges until he refunded her money having failed to deliver the land she had paid for.
The IGP was also implored to inquire into the circumstances under which the Pakistanis, who had hired Chemonges to construct a modern car bond for them opposite MTAC in Nakawa, bitterly fell out with him. There are also complaints from buyers who purchased land from Chemonges’ large housing estate in Kiwanga on grounds that the man was unable to promptly give them their titles.
There was determination by the detectives from Kireka to harvest Chemonges during one of his campaign rallies earlier this year but the move was abandoned after his Kween County supporters were incited to riot. Even after winning elections, Chemonges who previously issued nugatory cheques to the banker that amounted to nothing, has continued to play hide and seek. And all the traps the detectives have been laying at his newly acquired palatial home in the Kalagi neighborhood of Mukono Municipality haven’t yielded because the man is always very incognito each time he abodes at that home.
He recently made distress phone calls pleading with the banker not to over escalate things as the same can jeopardize his swearing in ceremony which is due in the next two weeks. He sent whatsapp images to the banker indicating he had applied for a loan using his office as MP adding that the same was on the verge of being applied making it possible for him to borrow over Shs500m once he effectively takes office.
His other creditors are fearful that the man is too indebted so much that even the parliamentary loans can’t make his situation better. There are wide spread efforts by his creditors and earlier victims to widely publicize Chemonges’ controversial land deals and transactions so that none of the new MPs ever falls victim. Indeed, even after becoming MP, Chemonges who many lands dealers in Kira fear because of his connections to Maj Jimmy, the wife to a State House Colonel, intends to remain an active real estate dealer though the SIU investigations have greatly dented his standing as a major actor in Kira Municipality’s real estate business.
