I Owe Gov’t No Penny – Basajja
EMBATTLED CITY tycoon Hassan Basajjabalaba is today set for proper skinning by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over his continued refusal to pay Shs21bn debts he owes government.
According to top sources on PAC, following our previous story in which we reported that government was moving steadily to auction all his empire in the city and Munyonyo to recover this money, the embattled tycoon sent emissaries to the committee pleading for his case.
In his message, Basajja claimed that he had paid government all these monies but his emissaries didn’t come with proof to that effect. As a result, the committee headed by Kassiano Wadri resolved that Basajja presents himself this morning for intense roasting and also substantiate his claims that he owes government no penny.
“He sent people here and claimed that he had paid the government. He claimed he owes government nothing. We asked him to appear on Monday with proof that he paid,” sources said. Among a list of evidence Basajja will sweat to produce is payment receipts. He will also battle questions as to why the Central Bank continues to withhold his land titles yet he claims to have cleared his debts. In fact, we established that following his claims, Wadri (PAC) on Friday dispatched a team of CID chiefs to the Central Bank to carry out due diligence on the Basajja titles being held by the bank. The CID were also supposed to find out whether these titles exist in the lands ministry y in addition to establishing the actual person running the properties relating to the security before the central bank.
Basajja’s latest woes stem from last week’s revelation by finance ministry and Bank of Uganda that they were considering auctioning all his properties in order to recover the Shs21bn.
This Money according to finance was drawn from the national reserves and was used to bail out Basajja whose properties were up for sale by commercial banks which had lent him billions but he failed to pay. Upon hearing of the move to auction his properties, finance moved swiftly and wrote to Bank of Uganda asking it to save Basajja’s financial empire.
The ministry claimed that the assistance would be swapped with Basajja’s alleged Shs189bn compensation against government. Basajja had allegedly won a case against government in which he expected Shs189bn and therefore bailing him out on the Shs21bn was appropriate since government ‘owed’ him billions. Interestingly, it later turned out that this alleged consent judgment had been forged by Basajja.
The same man according to finance didn’t stop at forging a judgment where he pocketed Shs169bn fraudulently but also went ahead to forge land titles of all the properties he staked as security to the commercial banks/Bank of Uganda. The central bank then rushed to court where it inflicted misery on him. The Ministry of Finance insists that Basajja has never paid this money, but he dramatically claims that he paid and he has all evidence to this effect.
“Today (Monday), we shall know if he is deceiving again! We want him to come with evidence which we shall relate with what we have. We are seeing some drama in this case” the sources stated.
“the govt knows what to do, Kaguta will summon basajja and everything will settle down in only one swing.
as long as the powers that be are helping him out in his suspicius deals, all what you are reading is a waste of time .from the cement without vat which built IUU,to the Nec bussiness UMSC,lufula all the (Butales) markets etc, the proverbial 40 days will catch up with him.