Theft of Taxpayers’ money through Uganda Airlines – Obedgiu Samuel

The revival of this Uganda airlines shows how corporate governance, was killed by the Museveni regime so that his family can steal tax payer’s money very easily

This airline doesn’t belong to Ugandans and won’t help Uganda, anyway!

Currently, even before Covid19, no airline business was a profitable business, breaking even without its ground handling services. At the down of implementing the reckless IMF free-market structural adjustment programs, Sam Kutesa looted the ground handling services (ENHAS) of the Uganda airlines.

ENHAS was owned by Kutesa up to 2018 when he sold it to some foreigners. But when Kutesa was owning this ENHAS, most of the proceeds of that Business were sent to tax havens and offshore bank accounts

Of what use is it to have an airline without its ground handling services? Anyways, that asides, let’s look at the shareholding of this recently revived airline.

In law, there is a concept called being a “nominee shareholder,” which means, A nominee shareholder is someone that “lends his name” to you to act as the registered owner of shares in a company when in truth, he only holds the shares for your benefit.

If you appoint a nominee shareholder, he would appear to the world to be the owner of the shares, and you get to keep the arrangement a secret. But these thieves in the Museveni family didn’t even tell us anything about those “secret people” who hold 99% in the airline. The government of Uganda owns less than 1% don’t you find this theft interesting? So is that person holding the 99% shares a nominee or they are just undisclosed people owing a national asset funded by taxpayers? That’s food for thought.

Why not create a law that governs the corporate governance structures of this airline to be run as a scheduled corporation? Alright if they are to take the private company model, why is the government not owning 99% of shares the way it with Rwanda airlines? This thing is very suspicious! Keith Muhakanizi, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, and his Works counterpart Waiswa Bageya are listed as company directors while Bisereko Kyomuhendo is the company secretary. Mr. Muhakanizi and Mr. Bageya were appointed directors in their official capacity as permanent secretaries. This is daylight theft!