The US led an investigation into the bribery claims, which have sucked in several countries on three continents. The report of its findings was sent a week ago, the Inspector General of Government Jotham Tumwesigye said yesterday. “Yes, they have finalised investigations,” Tumwesigye told The Monitor. “We have been waiting for
information from the US. They said they sent it about two weeks ago, but we have not received it yet.” It is not clear what new evidence the Justice Department files might have. Officials of the Criminal Division of the US Justice Department are yet to reply to queries The Monitor sent them on December 17. But a source yesterday said that the US
evidence is likely to concern two issues. First, is whether Veidekke, a Norwegian contractor for the stalled Bujagali hydropower plant, paid a $10,000 bribe to former Mr Richard Kaijuka, a former Energy minister and World Bank official. Nor-Icil, the English subsidiary of Veidekke, reportedly deposited the money on Kaijuka’s bank account in London. In Norway, the public prosecutor has, due to lack of enough evidence to
sustain the allegations in a court of law, dropped the case against Kaijuka. Tumwesigye would, however, not say whether Uganda too might drop court action against the former minister. “We shall assess the information sent; then, we will decide,” he said. Kaijuka says the money was for his son, Mr Steven Kagyezi, for work done for the contractor in 1997/98. Sources further said that the second area of investigation is the bribery allegations against Ugandan MPs. Last month, the Guardian newspaper of the UK broke the story that American and UK fraud investigators were probing claims that a British firm gave inducements to Ugandan MPs to back the construction of Bujagali. The paper said that incriminating evidence had been confiscated after a raid on the home of one of the Bujagali lobbyists in London, Amis Consultants Ltd. It was alleged that the  consultants paid some MPs to influence them to swing their support from the $380 million Karuma hydropower project to the $585 Bujagali hydropower project. The
Norwegian company, Norpak, and Virginia-based AES Corporation fronted Karuma and Bujagali respectively. The London-based lobbying firm, the Guardian reported, had become the focus of an international criminal investigation into allegations of corruption by western engineering firms. At the time, Tumwesigye said he had “got very useful information on individuals and companies involved”. But MPs demanded an investigation into the matter to reveal the culprits and save Parliament’s image. While Speaker Edward Ssekandi said he would scrutinise the details of the allegations and see how best to handle them. He is yet to announce his moves.