First son Kainerugaba’s wife Charlotte, another Minister Kutesa daughter on spot over ‘inflated’ Covid19 oxygen plants contract sum, delays

A report by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development’s (Mofped) Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit (BMAU) has lifted the lid on a Covid19 oxygen plants’ procurement scandal involving two members of the first family: Charlotte Kainerugaba, first son Lt Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s wife, and Ishta Muganga.

Muganga and Ms Kainerugaba are not only both sisters and daughters to foreign affairs minister Sam Kahamba Kutesa but are also co-owners of Silverbacks Pharmacy Ltd, a pharmaceutical company started in 2004.  

On May 06, 2020, Silverbacks Pharmacy Ltd signed a Shs6.4bn contract to supply and install oxygen plants at Mulago National Referral and Entebbe Hospital. The contract also required Kainerugaba and Muganga’s Silverbacks Pharmacy Ltd to supply 450 cylinders, regulators, humidifier bottles and cannulas.

Consequently, the Shs6.4bn invoiced under R1658/MAY20/01 was paid by June 30. Yet Kainerugaba and Muganga had neither made deliveries nor installations by September 2020 when the monitoring teams did their field visits at Mulago and Entebbe.

INFLATED CONTRACT COST

In its Covid19 interventions October report, BMAU also raised questions on the cost of the supplies and installations.

The experts at BMAU noted that whereas Silverbacks Pharmacy Ltd supplied and installed oxygen plants  to 13 regional referral hospitals at almost the same cost of Shs6bn, government had paid Shs6.4bn for only two plants. Although the exchange rate in 2017 was Shs3,370 compared to about Shs3,700 in May, the cost could not have risen to that level.

Mofped’s accountability unit now wants the Auditor General to carry out a forensic audit and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) to conduct a procurement audit into the award of the contract and the cost of supply and installation.

Recent media reports revealed dysfunctional oxygen equipment at Mulago had made it difficult for a number of patients admitted in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to survive.