| Bamuze Kla hotel bill costs taxpayer Shs 555m |
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By Richard M. Kavuma For its failure to release Shs 10 million to repair a house for ex-rebel leader Maj. Gen. Ali Bamuze, government will now have to pay over 50 times more in hotel bills.
With five aides, the Toyota Prado-cruising Bamuze is costing the Ugandan taxpayer a fortune. According to Defence sources, his hotel bill had shot to U.S. $300,000 (Shs 555 million) by April 2005. It is a sad commentary on the management of public money, especially in a country with rising poverty levels, and with Bamuze still demanding Shs 600 million to pay off his ex-rebels. Bamuze signed a peace agreement with President Musevenis government in December 2002, bringing his 2,000 fighters out of the West Nile bushes. In return, government agreed to pay the rebels Shs 4.2 billion, admit about 700 rebels into the UPDF and meet other demands. A former soldier in the Idi Amin army, Bamuze had started UNRF II in 1996, breaking away from the West Nile Bank Front. After signing the agreement, Bamuze first lived in Yumbe, before Defence checked him into Fairway the hotel government often uses to house ex-warlords and senior army officers from upcountry on short-term call to Bombo army headquarters and Kampala. Government actually got him a house in Kitintale but the house needed to be renovated, said one Bamuze aide, and they have kept postponing the renovation. The aide added that Bamuze was actually uncomfortable living in a hotel and had been pushing for a permanent residence. Efforts to get a comment from Bamuze were futile. An escort who answered the phone in his cottage said he was in a meeting at the ministry of Internal Affairs.
You have to first speak to [army spokesman] Lt. Col. Shaban Bantariza, and then he will let you come to me, the former rebel leader said. Defence explains Bantariza admitted that Bamuze was being housed in Fairway but could not give the outstanding bill. After crosschecking with a Defence finance official, the spokesman said government was paying only around Shs 10 million per month. He thus questioned the cumulative figure of $300,000 by April 2005, suggesting that it might have been only Shs 300 million. By press, time he was yet to get the official figure. This is someone with whom we have an agreement and who has entitlements, Bantariza said. We cannot put him in Katanga [slum]; he needs decent accommodation. Among other things, Bamuzes house reportedly lacked running water supply. The armys Barracks and Stores section was to repair it at a cost of Shs 10.5 million. However, the repairs were delayed because, Bantariza says, the army has very little money for maintenance of all barracks in Uganda. He said, however, that the repairs had since started and Bamuze should move into his house soon. Another case in the army is the hiring of vehicles for some of its officers. According to Defence sources, businessmen are still hiring out vehicles to the army at Shs 150,000 per vehicle per day. In two years, the army will have spent nearly Shs 110 million on each vehicle. Yet for much less, the army would have bought a vehicle that could last five years. Demands nearly over Although Bamuze has not had a house, one aide said he was generally a happy man because many of the demands of the peace agreement had been met. Several former rebels have joined the UPDF and Bamuze has received Shs 3.6 billion out of the promised 4.2 billion. The aide however complained that government promised to build an army school for former UNRF II child-soldiers and children of combatants but has so far failed to deliver. However, Lt. Col. Bantariza said 57 former Bamuze officers were doing a basic officers course in Jinja. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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