4

THE OBSERVER | Monday,December 29 - 30, 2014

homenews

The cost of neutralising Mbabazi

at least Shs 600m, according
to news reports.

EDRIS KIGGUNDU

The NRM and President

Museveni have spent
about Shs 75bn in the last
10 months, on a campaign
to isolate and diminish the
political stature of Amama
Mbabazi, the former
prime minister and party
secretary general, a rough
calculation by The Observer
has found.
To get to Shs 75bn,
The Observer added
up expenditures on
publicly known antiMbabazi meetings and
interventions undertaken
by President Museveni
between February and
December 2014 to counter
Mbabazis alleged political
mobilization schemes.
But insider sources
familiar
with
party
activities, said the total
cost could be much higher
because our calculation did
not factor in expenditure
on the NRM parliamentary
caucus meetings which
were regular at the time,
and on intelligence and
other services, which may
be classified.
For instance, The Observer
has learnt that money
was spent on various
delegations sent abroad
(specifically, China, United
Arab Emirates and to the
UNAA convention), to
counter Mbabazis growing
influence and sever his
networks with the political
establishments of those
countries.
Besides the monetary
cost, the MuseveniMbabazi rift has had other
intrinsic costs reflected
in the splits among party
supporters in various
parts of the country and
in the purging of people in
security and other public
institutions, assumed to be
Mbabazi leaning.
SOLE CANDIDATURE

In the aftermath of the

Kyankwanzi NRM MPs
retreat that endorsed
Museveni as the NRM
sole candidate for the
2016, effectively sidelining
Mbabazi, it was time for
head of state to return the
favour. So in March, some
NRM MPs pleaded with
Museveni to bail them out
of their debts. Their pleas
came amid claims that
Mbabazi, working with a
Chinese bank, was working
to offer Shs 120m per MP in
bail out cash.
Fearing that Mbabazi
would steal the thunder,
Museveni later sanctioned
a rescue plan where MPs
were given between Shs
110m and Shs 130m. For
this purpose, a fund worth
about Shs 41.2 billion was

MINISTERIAL TOUR

Amama Mbabazi

MONTH
March
April
April-May
June-July
October-November
December
December 13-15

TOTAL COST

ACTIVITY
Museveni agrees to bail out
indebted NRM MPs
MPs sell Musevenis sole
candidature
Museveni meets NRM youth
leaders
Museveni meets various
district delegations
Ministers embark on
countrywide tour
Museveni meets district
delegations
NEC, CEC, delegates
conference

ESTIMATED COST
41.2 bn
6 bn
2bn
2bn
2bn
1.2 bn
21 bn

76.2 bn

set aside.
Besides the debt bailout,
at the start of April, the
NRM gave each NRM MP
Shs 4m per sub country
to sell the sole candidate
project in constituencies.
Some 263 MPs (excluding
Mbabazi), got this money.
Assuming an average
of four sub counties per
constituency, it means
each MP received at least
Shs 16m. This means that
the party spent at least Shs
4.2bn to facilitate all MPs,
which is close to the widely
quoted figure of Shs 6bn.
STATE HOUSE
MEETINGS

Yet the bulk of the

Museveni expenditure on
the anti-Mbabazi campaign
was incurred during the
various meetings Museveni
held
with
different
delegations at State House
Entebbe between March
and December.
On seven occasions
during
this
period,
Museveni met the warring
NRM youth league leaders,
including three meetings
with a group that had allied

itself with Mbabazi.

Later in May, Museveni
held four meetings with
NRM youths from four
sub regions. With the
exception of youths from
western Uganda, who he
met at Lake View hotel in
Mbarara, all other meetings
were held at State House
Entebbe.
We have been told that

each of these meetings was

usually attended by not less
than 300 people who were
given a transport refund of
Shs 300,000 per person.
So at the very minimum
at least Shs 90m was
spent in transport refund
per meeting. This figure
however excludes a myriad
of costs such as transport to
the meeting venue, lunch
and other costs.
We estimate that the total
expenditure for all the four
regional meetings came to
about Shs 2bn.
In one meeting at
Rwakitura
in
May,
Museveni agreed to give
the youth leaders from
Buganda heifers as part
of his poverty alleviation
campaign.
In July, the youth leaders
underwent a three-day
residential training at
Makerere
University
Agricultural Research
Institute
Kabanyolo
(MUARIK) and at Mukono
Zonal
Agricultural
Research and Development
Institute Ntaawo, just
before the animals were
delivered. This scheme cost

Between October and

November, four ministers,
Rosemary Namayanja
Nsereko (Information and
National Guidance) Justine
Kasule Lumumba (Chief
Whip), Frank Tumwebaze
(Presidency) and Richard
Todwong (Mobilisation)
embarked on a countrywide tour.
The stated purpose of
the meetings was to assess
the performance of the
NRM at the grassroots as
far as service delivery is
concerned. Unofficially
however, the ministers had
gone to the grassroots to
destroy whatever network
Mbabazi had built.
The meetings, according
to our sources, attracted
at least 120 delegates per
district and each was paid
a transport refund of Shs
100,000. MPs who attended
these meetings on the
other hand were given Shs
300,000.
This means that the party
spent at least Shs 12m in
allowances per district,
making a total of at least
Shs 1.3bn. This money
however excludes other
costs like facilitation for
ministers.
During the CEC meeting
held on October 17,
Jacqueline Mbabazi told
Museveni that she was
aware that at least Shs
2bn had been spent on the
ministers countrywide
tours to fight her husband.
Just two weeks to the
December 15 conference,
Museveni again met NRM
leaders from all the sub
regions of the country.
We reported the drama
at State House when the
president met leaders from
western Uganda.
Each district delegation
averaged 40 people who
according to sources were
paid a transport refund
of Shs 200,000 per person,
meaning a minimum
of Shs 8m was spent on
allowances. So, for all the
112 districts in Uganda, the
total comes to Shs 896m.
We have been told
that each bus, which
transported delegates
from their districts to State
House was hired at Shs 3m
per day. With a bus per
district, the figure comes
to Shs 336m. So at the very
least Shs 1.2bn was spent
on all the four meetings,
although this figure
excludes so many other
costs like feeding.

DELEGATES
CONFERENCE

The climax of the anti-

Mbabazi fight was the

December 15 delegates
conference
and
the
meetings that preceded it
(NEC and CEC) at State
House, Entebbe.
The delegates conference
was the final nail in
Mbabazis political coffin
(or perhaps the last wound
before he realizes he has
to fight for his political
life) because it adopted a
proposal to give the party
chairman power to appoint
a secretary general, among
other offices.
A source close to
the organisation of the
event said the party had
originally budgeted for Shs
10bn, including allowances
for the more than 10,000
delegates and other
expenses.
However, the figure
doubled to about Shs 21bn
due to a number of factors.
First, the number of
delegates almost doubled,
stretching the initial
budget.
Secondly, some of the
sub committees (which
were part of the national
organising committees)
started incorporating more
activities than they had
envisaged.
Then, according to our
source, more funds had to
be released to double the
security deployment in the
city after reports emerged
that the conference could
be targeted by terrorists.
Tamale
Mirundi,
the presidential press
secretary told The Observer
on Monday that some
political decisions cannot
be quantified in financial
terms.
There are things that
are not valued in monetary
terms. Like politics. If
you organise a meeting
to strengthen your party,
how do you value that?
All parties are doing it, he
said.
He said in any case
Mbabazi was not a political
threat to Museveni and
therefore the president
would not go out of his way
to fight him.
Mirundi said many of
the meetings between
Museveni and the various
NRM leaders were aimed at
pinpointing the problems
affecting the country.
Yet critics, such as
Jacqueline Mbabazi and
her sister Hope Mwesigye,
could argue that Mbabazi
was considered such a big
problem that he caused a
one-man reshuffle to kick
him out of government,
and a delegates conference
to get him out of the
leadership of the NRM.
ekiggundu@observer.ug