Exposed: How NUP’s Joel Ssenyonyi Pocketed UGX1.4Billion To Cover Up CAA COSASE Report
By Uganda Online Media
Kampala: A team of investigative journalists has been compiling several properties owned by Chairman COSASE, also a member of Parliament Nakawa West Division Joel Ssenyonyi.
The investigation followed a tip-off from inside sources within parliamentary circles alleging that the NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine’s most confidant, also party’s spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi has amassed wealth in just one year since he entered parliament, only comparable to the likes of Sam Kuteesa’s caliber of networks.
According to a whistleblower, this has been majorly possible, thanks to his current position he serves as chairman of the Committee on Commissions, State Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE), whereby it’s alleged that whichever government parastatal head who comes before his committee if they want to be let ‘off-the-hook’, must bleed In terms of dollars not even in Ugandan shillings!
One of his victims, according to our close sources at parliament, also a member of the COSASE committee names withheld on request, is the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) boss Mr. Fred K. Bamwesigye who coughed up to UGX1.4billion to kill a damning report on the misappropriation of tax payers’ money going on at the airport.
It should be remembered that COSASE under the stewardship of opposition members, also NUP spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi was conducting a probe into the over-exaggerated contract cost to expand the only International Airport in Uganda, Entebbe airport. In their original report which was okayed by all committee members pinched holes in several areas where they detected anomalies;
1-The members found out that the contractor sub-contracted part of the work at the international airport to a company whose owner was underage.
2-The committee found out that the booth for tickets payment and check-in machines was built at a whopping UGX 5.6billion
3- The COSASE committee also found out that the sums of money collected from parking fees and tickets at the airport weren’t being accounted for. It was being eaten by the mafia networks at the airport.
So, after the team did its good report and handed it over to Joel as head of the committee to present to the floor of Parliament, members of the committee were shocked to the marrows when they saw the youthful leader and Nakawa West MP presenting a fake report, devoid of the mess they had actually reported about at the airport.
Not to wait for further embarrassment, members of the committee rose on the floor of Parliament and disowned the report he was trying to tender in, calling it a fake report only aimed at wetting the beak of the young and money-hungry legislature. Since then, the true report has never been presented. When members then got intel that Ssenyonyi had sold their report at a staggering 1.4b. In fact, the information spread fast when he allegedly called a few of his confidants on the committee to give them cramps and they insisted that they also wanted a full ‘thigh of the bull’.
For this sort of aggrandizement, Ssenyonyi is being linked to several properties in town now and some multibillion construction sites which we will soon bring unto the fora.
Meanwhile, our efforts to get a comment from Ssenyonyi yielded no positive result as our calls and WhatsApp messages on his known phone number (075444….) went unanswered. The same has been ignored by UCCA boss Fred Bamwesigye whom we reached out for a comment but declined to say anything.
On the other hand, however, the spokesperson for UCCA Vianney Luggya told our investigative reporter that the above allegation should be ignored with the contempt it deserves. “Please ignore such an allegation with the contempt it deserves,” said Vianney.
Recently, IGG Beti Kamya had promised to launch a lifestyle audit of all Ugandans paid from the consolidated national fund to ascertain whether their salaries rime with their salaries. Although President Museveni later watered down the idea arguing that this would scare them away and end up investing their loot outside the country, Kamya insists that such a law would try to mitigate certain levels of corruption.
