Masaka District Property Faces Attachment over town clerk Debt

Masaka district administration and council still owes its former acting town clerk 200 million shillings.

Masaka High Court Judge Justice Oumo Oguli has ordered the district administration and municipal council to pay 200 million shillings to former acting town clerk Edward Kiwanuka Gwavvu for unlawful dismissal.

The ruling comes after Court dismissed an application filed by Masaka Municipal Council and Masaka District Administration asking Masaka High Court to stop Kiwanuka from attaching council property after the end of 6 months grace period given to the two institutions by Masaka High Court judge Justice Catherine Bamugemereire to reinstate Gwavvu in office on top of paying him 200 million shillings costs for unlawful dismissal.

Justice Oguli agreed with the first Ruling by Justice Bamugemereire citing that the whole process of sacking Gwavvu was conducted irregularly. She said that council failed to prove to court that reinstalling Gwavvu in office and paying him the 200 million shillings would cause an irreparable loss to the two institutions as stated by the applicants in their application form.

She added that the council failed to prove that the applicants were ready to make an appeal in the matter because they just filed a notice to appeal which they did not even follow up.

On January 31 2007 Masaka District Service Commission sacked Kiwanuka accusing him of paying 280 million shillings to Uganda Revenue Authority as Pay As You Earn and Valued Added Tax without negotiating a reduction.

They also accused Kiwanuka of renewing the contract of UTODA, to manage Masaka Taxi Park in disregard to the laid down procedure which prompted Kiwanuka through his lawyer Richard Mugisha of Musika, Mugisha and Co. Advocates to drag the Masaka District Administration and Masaka Municipal Council.

Kiwanuka welcomed the ruling saying that the ruling is a landmark him since he acted on the advice of the solicitor general but he was instead dismissed from work without even giving him a chance to explain to the district service commission. He accused them of acting on rumours yet everything he did was under the law.

However, Lure Mugerwa Masaka Law enforcement officer who represented Masaka Municipality’s Town Clerk Johnson Baryantuma Munono declined to comment on the matter.