SPOTLIGHT! Minister Anite caught up in diplomatic scandal over UK Ambassador, Dubai Prince

State Minister of Finance for Investment and Privatization Evelyn Anite (PHOTO/File)

KAMPALA – A letter authored by the Uganda Investments Authority Director General has put State Minister for Investment Evelyn Anite on the spot for misrepresenting a meeting with the British High Commissioner to Kampala that never was and orchestrating cyber harassing of Dubai Prince Sheikh Mohammed Juma Al Maktoum.

The July 23 letter making rounds, is copied to the President’s Principal Private Secretary, the Minister of Finance, UIA Board Chairman, the Attorney General and all the UIA staff who received the honorarium payments the minister has directed should be refunded.

Mr. Robert Mukiza, Director General, UIA, has disputed the Minister’s June 11 presentation during a joint UIA Board and Management meeting she chaired where she reported that she had met the UK High Commissioner Kaite Airles, who had pressured her to have the staff refund the honorarium payments.

Background.

On June 12th, 2024, Ms Anite wrote to the UIA chairman board of directors Mr Moris Rwakakamba directing him that t force the UIA staff members who received honoraria payments to refund it within 24 hours short of which would lead to dismissal.

According to the Uganda Investments Authority human resources manual, the honorarium is the payment to the staff if they do any assignment outside their usual contract duties.

Mukiza insists that selected UIA staff had been given extra assignments on the ongoing project of upgrading the Kampala Industrial and Business Park at Namanve when they took over the roles of Owner’s Engineer whose contract had been terminated.

Refund Order: Minister of Investment Evelyn Anite’s letter to UIA Director General Robert Mukiza, directing the refund of honorarium payments to staffThe UIA staff wrote to the contractor asking for the account where to deposit the refund.

But in the meantime, Ms Anite took the matter on her social media platforms, where she aggressively posted and updated the public about that matter. It caught the President’s attention, who invited the minister, the board, and the UIA staff who received the honorarium payments for a meeting at the State House. During the meeting, the hunter became the hunted when it was Mukiza’s turn to speak, he described minister Anite as a manipulative, corrupt, and hypocritical leader in the history of mankind and went ahead to inform the president that the minister was just using the honorarium payments as a pretext but the real motives she wanted him out of office are different.

The rejoinder by Mukiza shocked Minister Anite who didn’t expect his junior to boldly utter such words before her boss that she cried loudly while throwing her hands in the air to the extent that the president had to end the meeting prematurely.

After the meeting with the president, Ms. Anite, filled with rage, went on her X handle and began blasting Mukiza, accusing him of telling lies to the President.

On July 3, 2024, Minister Anite again wrote to Mukiza officially expressing her disappointment at him for allegedly lying to the President.
Mukiza has since responded to the minister in a July 23 stinger accusing her of forging all the grounds she had used to try to force the UIA staff to refund the money that was in any case legally paid.

The UIA Director Genera accuses the Minister of lying that she had personally met with the UK High Commissioner to Uganda, who had directed that the money be refunded. He again accused her of concocting lies that the UKEF the funder is the one that put her under pressure to act the way she did.

Mukiza, in the letter, further accuses the Minister of having denied that she called Mohammed Juma Marktoum a conman who is impersonating Dubai Royal Family.