Mwine Mpaka, the Mbarara South MP
A section of MPs on Parliament’s Trade Committee have decried the endless political interference into the operations of Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) especially when making decisions on what companies to bailout by Government.
The concern was first raised by Mwine Mpaka, the Mbarara South MP, as officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives and UDC appeared before the Committee to present the 2023/2024 ministerial policy statement.
“We have reason to believe there is a lot of political interference (in UDC) and we feel sorry for this team of UDC. They keep receiving requests from ‘above’ on projects to finance, but they have to anyway!…you also know that projects like Atiak are very far away. Money has been given to Atiak, you also don’t believe it (can succeed) but you continue giving it away since the orders are coming from above,” Mwine, who is also the Chairperson of the Trade Committee, said.
However, David Bahati, Minister of State for Industries, asked the Committee for more time to respond to the concern raised remarking, “We do request that you give us more time to respond to this issue in writing beyond this meeting.”
The development comes at the time Parliament is divided over the decision by Government to give businessman Sudhir Ruparelia Shs86.4bn, part of which Shs48.4bn is a loan to Sudhir to construct a conference hall at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort, with part of the contention lying with the failure by UDC to reclaim shares from the money Government had earlier invested in Munyonyo.
The other contentious investment UDC made was the payment of Shs274.11bn into Atiak Sugar Factory and another Shs26.15bn into Abubaker Technical Services with many lawmakers demanding UDC to explain the criteria used to choose which company should be bailed out.
