Speaking to The New Vision on phone from The Church Hill Inter Continental Hotel in London on Friday evening, Kaijuka said “The US$10,000 entry on my foreign account which they are talking about was for my son with whom I run a flower farm in Uganda.”

“My son, who is now abroad for greener pastures, was not a signatory to the account. He only used to deposit his money there because he did not have a foreign account.

“It was not the first time that he had used my account in London. There were other entries (deposits) of US$1,000 and other amounts on the same account,” said Kaijuka, who was en-route Washington from West Africa.

“It was not a crime for my son who was in private business to use my bank account. The US$10,000 was a legitimate payment to him for the businesses he had transacted. All what has been said and written about me is absolute rubbish and a smear campaign,” he said.

Kaijuka declined to name the son and the bank where the disputed money was banked.

He said apart from giving details to the IGG, no other government official ever questioned him or recorded his statement about the issue.

“I gave the IGG everything when the issue was raised last year. But I am surprised how it has come up again,” he said.

“So it is an insult for one to say that I took or solicited a bribe. I don’t fear anything and I am not worried at all. I have a clean record and I have never been corrupt. I have no apologies to make for being an upright person. But the truth will eventually emerge,” he stated.

Kaijuka, 61, a former MP for Sheema North, Bushenyi district, is now an alternate executive director for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank headquarters in Washington.

A Norwegian firm, Veidekke, one of the contractors for Bujagali dam construction consortium, allegedly paid a US$10,000 bribe to a Uganda government official in 1999.

Veidekke said in a statement recently, that a manager in its English subsidiary, Norcil Ltd.,made the unofficial payment. By then, Viedekke was lobbying to build the Karuma Falls dam.

A journalist in London said Kaijuka wrote a letter to the World Bank in which he said the money was for his son (Steven Kagyezi Kaijuka) to do a study on how to mobilise manpower and logistics for the Karuma falls dam.

Sources said Kagyezi, who is now studying in Australia, has so far declined to confirm his father (Kaijuka’s) story.

Kagyezi was the general manager of Kaijuka’s Equator Flowers, at Bunono village off Entebbe Road, which was placed under receivership.

The flower farm has since been sold to Sudhir Ruparelia and his business associates, Tom Mugenga and Karim Somani. It’s now known as Rosebud 2.

Kaijuka said: “I will take legal action against any company, which claims to have bribed me.

“Why have the allegations come up now when the MIGA (Multi Lateral Investment Guarantee Agency) executive board is about to sit and make a final verdict on Bujagali? The timing of the article published in the Wall Street Journal was fishy,” he charged. MIGA is a World Bank agency.

“My integrity is impeccable and above board. I have never taken or solicited any bribe from any one-not even the AES Nile Power, Bujagali dam contractors or the subsidiaries.

“Those are forces opposed to the Bujagali project now trying to tarnish my reputation. It is a well-organised and orchestrated smear campaign,” he added.

Kaijuka stated: “At the time I left the ministry (April 1999), the Government had already taken a decision to build the Bujagali dam.

“I had long left the ministry when AES started the tendering process and appointed contractors,” he said.

“Even the Scandinavian companies were annoyed with me at the time because I did not support them on the Karuma dam project. How then would they have bribed me?” he wondered.

Kaijuka said the smear campaign launched against him, started soon after he took up the World Bank job in 2000.

“Six months after I took up the World Bank job, certain forces sought legal opinion on how to remove me from my post on grounds that I was corrupt but they failed,” he said.

“I underwent thorough scrutiny at the World Bank which I believe many government officials in Uganda have never been subjected to, just because they wanted to find out whether I was corrupt,” he said.

“I also voluntarily presented to the World Bank’s ethics and integrity department all my bank statements for the past four years for both my local and foreign accounts to clear any doubts about me. I explained each and every entry on the accounts,” he added.

“People should be proud of the role I am playing at the World Bank. They are not damaging Kaijuka as a person but the African continent which I represent,” said the angry ex-minister.

On July 8, the Prime Minister, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, wrote to the IGG and asked him to ‘thoroughly investigate’ the US$10,000 bribe and report back his findings as soon as possible.

President Yoweri Museveni told a press conference in Kampala on Thursday that the person who took the US$10,000 bribe had been identified and action would be taken against him.

But Museveni did not name the suspect.