Kampala: Government plans to investigate “criminal acts” by some members of Parliament, a minister has said. Prof. Mondo Kagonyera, the minister for General Duties in the Prime Minister’s Office, made the announcement in Parliament yesterday. The Guardian newspaper in London reported recently that a UK-based lobbying firm is under investigation over the Bujagali dam project. The paper claimed that investigators are
trying to establish whether some Ugandan MPs took bribes from a Scandinavian consortium. Kagonyera said the MPs may have taken bribes, but as individuals. He said appropriate steps would immediately be taken to isolate the bad MPs. The World Bank last year suspended its $215 million funding for the dam project, citing corruption. The
Guardian said that investigators from the United States, Norway and Sweden and Uganda’s Inspector General of Government have information about the alleged corruption. They reportedly have evidence that in 1998 the Nordic Consortium, Norpak Power, hired a firm of UK consultants, which lobbied Ugandan MPs with the promise of financial inducements to block the Bujagali dam project. Norpak was lobbying government to build a rival dam on a site at Karuma. Kagonyera, however, warned that there are some people who sabotaged the project.
Bukomansimbi MP Kagimu Kiwanuka raised the matter in the House. He said, while quoting the local media, that there are some MPs who received bribes to block the Bujagali project. He said that according to his research, it is the sixth Parliament, which is implicated. Mr James Mwandha (PWD) and Mr Ken Lukyamuzi (Lubaga South) said they can no longer walk with their heads high after the negative reports. “When I talk of Bujagali people think I am mad,” Lukyamuzi said. He asked the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Janat Mukwaya to immediately name the MPs involved. Mukwaya said her colleague in charge of Energy is the right person to do so. Speaker Edward Ssekandi said the issue requires proper investigation.