Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) have sighted connivance between UNRA officials and 5 Chinese road construction Companies that were found not to have compensated road project affected people.
The committee chairperson, Abdul Katuntu, the vice chairperson, Anita Amongi and Brigadier Francis Takirwa told the media on Thursday that the committee is gathering enough evidence which will be used to pin UNRA officials for negligence of their duties.
“Yes there was connivance, because the terms of the contract talk about how the money should be administered. In 28 days you are supposed to open up a special Independent Impressed Account, it’s like putting money in the safe, it doesn’t earn you profit neither a loss,” noted Brigadier Takirwa
Hon. Amoding, Abdul Katuntu and Brigadier Francis
“For any money to be released for payment to the affected persons, there should have been authentication and authority from UNRA; you can see what happened, some of the money was fixed deposited, other monies go to China while others to the operations of the contractor.”
“You can see there was a lot of indiscipline; I think the officials of UNRA were part of what caused all this.
Katuntu noted that the committee will soon make recommendations to the whole Parliament for a resolution to have all the officers responsible held accountable for all the mess and inconvenience they caused to people that haven’t been compensated up to date.
Katuntu revealed that the committee has for now recovered a total of Sh26.3bn from four Chinese companies upon a directive that they issued early this week.
He noted that a one company, Chinese Railway Group 3 has not yet refunded the money due to lack of funds on their accounts in the country but have ordered UNRA to recall their Bank guarantee to effect the refund.