The Executive Director of National Forestry Authority, Michael Mugisha was on Thursday thrown out by Members of Parliament for failure to produce required documents for his institution.
MPs on the Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) committee wanted Mr. Mugisha and his team from the NFA to avail them with the accountability reports of the years 2011, 2012 and 2013 and also the legal papers for the land owned by the government body.
The Auditor General’s report of 2014/2015 pinned NFA for operating outside the streamlined framework and casually undertaking the meant to be sensitive assignments of the organization.
The committee chaired by Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu decided not to listen to any word from Mugusha and his colleagues and subsequently showed them the exit.
Katuntu stressed that the NFA officials were not ready to face the committee and give it the needed responses that were asked in time.
“We wrote to your office (NFA Executive Director) explicitly stating what we wanted to be explained. To our surprise there is nothing useful that the NFA leadership can provide to this committee now,” he said.
The NFA officials were expected to produce to the committee its financial manual, asset register for verification, more especially to ascertain whether the NFA land is not exposed to the rampant cases of land grabbing.
The committee chair stressed that most of the land held by public institutions are now under big threats of being fraudulently taken by unscrupulous business persons and in most cases a conspiracy by the
top executives of the respective government bodies.
“There is now a dilemma in this country that public land and those owned by public institutions are under immense threat from shoddy private investors. In many cases the top leaders of government
institutions are the ones who aid the illegal taking of public lands.”
The same committee on Tuesday handled the case of a fraudulent transaction in which 23 acres of prime land belong to the UBC was taken and still not yet returned.
The tittle of the land is not with the broadcaster but Burahaya County Member of Parliament, Margaret Muhangi who claimed to have bought it at Shs10.2bn in cash from Haba Group