Shadowy deals: Ushs 80 billion to Basajjabala rejected

By Athnus Faith

Legislators were up in arms against each other recently over recommendations by the Presidential Affairs Committee asked Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to compensate businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba Ushs 80 billion in order to repossess city abattoir located along Port Bell road in Kampala.

Amero Susan Vice Chairperson Parliament’s Presidential Affairs Committee took to the floor of Parliament to present findings of investigations over the impasse between KCCA, Basajjabalaba and the vendors at the abattoir.

It was revealed that the City Abattoir hasn’t been remitting non tax revenue since December 2011 but to make matters worse, KCCA is supposed to compensate Basajjabalaba, the proprietor of Hides and Skin Limited for loss of revenue, a claim KCCA rejected arguing the Authority hasn’t been collecting revenue.

The then Kampala City Council (KCC) that initially managed city abattoir entered in a management agreement with Basajjabalaba for the management of the property for a period of five years commencing on March 1^st 2000 and one year into the management contract, the businessman got a sub-lease from KCC for a term of 49 years.

In the agreement, the businessman was supposed to pay Ushs20m monthly including taxes to City Hall.

However, one year into the agreement, on March 4^th 2001, the property was subleased to Basajjabalaba at a premium of Ushs600M for 49 years.

Consequently, Bassajabalaba further subleased the property to Dan Kwatampola Katarihwa who allegedly attempted to change the land use from an abattoir into a bus terminal a decision that didn’t go down well with the vendors, forcing the vendors under the umbrella body City Abattoir Traders Development Association (CATDA) to evict both Basajjabalaba and Kwantampola from the city abattoir. Currently, the abattoir is being run by the vendors.

In their findings, Amero told Parliament that reconciliation between Basajjabalaba and KCCA is next to impossible because the later enjoyed powers and protection from the state coupled with the fact that Basajjabalaba informed the Committee that he had lost interest into the management of the city abattoir.

In their recommendations, the Committee advised to have the management of the abattoir to be left to the management of the traders and Government buys off the interest of Basjjabalaba.

The Committee report shifted the blame of Basajja’s failure to comply with the terms of lease agreement on by KCCA, due to its failure to guarantee possession.

“The conditions imposed by the sub-lease could only be implementable if only Basajjabalaba had retained possession. Basajjabalaba was denied the right possession of the premises and KCCA took no positive action to cause the eviction of the traders thus owing to the dispute of the various conflicting parties because they didn’t realize the anticipated revenue,