Four MPs last night landed at Entebbe International airport empty-handed after armed men in South Africa waylaid them and three parliamentary staff on arrival for an official visit. The attackers snatched their passports, personal effects.
One lawmaker was reportedly stripped during the robbery at KariBou-Inn Guest House located in a Johannesburg suburb, according to highly placed sources.
South African authorities and Ugandan officials have started separate inquiries into the diplomatic incident.
Those placed at gunpoint on Wednesday included Parliament’s Agriculture committee vice chairman Mr Robert Ndugwa Migadde and other committee members; Ms Santa Sandra Alum, Mr Francis Barnabas Gonahasa and Kenneth Esiangu Eitunganane.
Other victims were parliamentary senior counsel Florence Aceng, Agriculture committee clerk Jacquiline Mutekanga, and Dr Moses Achong Ongom, the marketing officer for Kyankwanzi District.The committee chairperson Christine-Doreen Lowila Oketayot flew in a day after the robbery, and Uganda diplomats booked her at Emperors Palace Hotel in Alexander Township where her distressed colleagues had been forcibly relocated.
“The matter is sensitive and I have referred it to Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Ambassador James Mugume,” Uganda’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Ambassador Julius Peter Moto, said.
Ambassador Mugume told this newspaper by telephone from Singapore that he was unaware about the incident and his understudy, Ambassador Rossette Nyirikindi Katungye, said last evening that she had not been briefed.
Initial reports suggested that the MPs neither notified the Ugandan High Commission in Pretoria nor the parent Foreign Affairs ministry in Kampala of their trip.
This newspaper has, however, seen an August 11, 2016 letter by Clerk to Parliament Jane Kibirige to the PS, Foreign Affairs, requesting the ministry to assist the lawmakers and parliamentary staff “obtain the relevant entry visas to South Africa”. We were unable to reach officials of the South African High Commission in Kampala.
Parliament Communications Director Chris Obore, who, together with Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, is in Mauritius attending a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference, confirmed the attack on the MPs.
“We have heard about the unfortunate incident …they were robbed [of their property] at the gate of the hotel; they hadn’t even settled in,” Mr Obore said.
Speaker Kadaga reportedly telephoned her South African counterpart to request for help to get the affected MPs and parliament staff out of trouble.
The lawmakers were headed to Durban, about 630 kilometres away, to visit the Amandla Fertilizer production facility and Parliament picked all their bills.
A source that declined to be named due to sensitivity of the matter claimed that the lawmakers likely picked the guest house because accommodation there is relatively cheaper and would enable them save money.
MP allowances
An MP gets $520 (Shs1.7 million) as daily allowance when on foreign trips. Rooms at the guest house on average cost South African Rands 635-1,265 (about Shs150,000-300,000 or $59-118) One source said someone who had spent nights at KariBou Inn recommended the guest House.
No staff of the guest house was available to speak when we telephoned them on the robbery incident.
The Monitor
UM– USEKE.RW
