The ownership of Uganda Airlines has taken yet another twist today after government withdrew from parliament the documents presented yesterday because they had errors regarding the allotment of shares.
Following Tuesday's revelation that government only owned 0.0001% (2 shares) of the 2 million shareholding in the revived airline, minister of Works and Transport, Monicah Ntege Azuba laid on table documents she claimed proved that government owned 100% shareholding of the airline.
Appearing before the Budget Committee today chaired by Amos Lugoloobi, were officials from ministry of Finance, ministry of Works and Transport, Uganda National Airlines Company Limited and Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB).
URSB registrar general Bemanya Twebaze whose certified documents Azuba presented to parliament yesterday, admitted that there was a "clerical error" in the return of allotment of shares to ministers Matia Kasaija (Finance) and Azuba (Works) as individuals and not to the ministries. However, he said, this should be looked at in the context of all the documents presented.
Probed further, Bemanya told the committee that the new allotment of 100% shares to the two ministries is null and void and MPs should "ignore the document because it bears no legal consequence" since the allotment of shares can only be done once in a company's history. Bemanya added that the names of shareholders (Azuba and Kasaija) should have been followed by their positions as members of cabinet in government.
"Even at your private companies if you come to register a company, you will always at the beginning allot one share then, subsequently you can allot all the shares. You can allot part of the shares, you can transfer even to people who were not. The owners of shares are two - the ministry of Works and Transport and the ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and it has never been individuals." said Bemanya.
"Allotting all the shares, 2 million shares and one million shares go to, according to the allotment of shares form that is form no.10, they go to the owner who is minister of Finance but you're right, chair [Lugoloobi] it is the company secretary recording this [document] put Matia Kasaija ministry of Finance…this is a clerical error, it doesn't of go to the substance of the ownership because you're reading the entire document from the owners…good enough the original document is very clear." he said.
"My opinion Hon chair is that it is subject to being corrected. Hon chair I'm saying this in context of the powers of the registrar. The law gives the registrar general powers to correct errors on the record. Actually it envisages that there will be errors and it gives you powers to correct the errors on the record." he added.
Kasaija and Azuba both apologised for the "errors" in the documents, with the Finance minister asking to be given time to go and do a "neat job" because they are working for the nation. He also blamed people in government who are too quick to speak even when they are not armed with facts.
"We can't do things like this really, we're doing a national thing. Through you mr chairman, would it offend the law if we said; lets go and correct this to read like this. Lets go change this so that we do things that are neat, nobody will challenge them tomorrow. We're very intelligent people, we're old people, mature people" said Kasaija.
"I want to apologise on behalf of my ministry for anything that did not come out sparkly. My people should ensure that we do things smartly. If you are not sure, don't speak," he added.
Azuba also blamed her technical people in the ministry who presented her with the embarrassing documents that contained errors.
"First and foremost I would like to apologise for the errors that have been made on behalf of the technical people in my ministry. I do apologise." Azuba said.
A new set of "corrected" documents were later tabled, but were also found to be defective with URSB saying they can't do much because the company, Uganda National Airlines Ltd is not ready.
Plane manufacturer, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft extended the final payment schedule to March 29 after government failed to honour its first payment commitment in December last year. The first jet was supposed to have been delivered in January this year and another in February, but with the MPs still questioning the ownership of the airline, it remains to be seen if parliament will approve the Shs 280 billion supplementary budget for the purchase of the two planes.
Source
