6 October 2008
editorial
Kampala — THE spectacular U-turn of NSSF's managing director David Chandi Jamwa in connection with the Temangalo land purchase raises a lot of questions.
Testifying before the probe committee at the end of August, the NSSB board, including Jamwa, denied there was any influence peddling to buy the land, one-quarter of which belonged to security minister Amama Mbabazi.
Jamwa even defended the sh11b deal in a press conference on August 12, saying 5,000 housing units would be built on the land, to be sold at sh15m each, thus earning the Fund sh75b. He also said NSSF bought it at a fair price.
"We paid sh24m for each acre, which is reasonable. The market price of an acre of land in this area is sh30m", he told journalists.
Last week, Jamwa suddenly asked to be heard in camera and alone, where he changed his story and said he had been pressurised by finance minister Ezra Suruma.
The allegations are questionable. It was NSSF which brought the Temangalo land proposal before the minister to give a 'no objection', not the other way around.
The investment was proposed together with five other plots and the minister approved all of them.
Suruma says apart from accidentally bumping into him at the WARID launch concert in Munyonyo, he has never met Jamwa alone. Whenever they met, it was in his office and in the presence of the board chairman. The board chairman still insists there was no influence peddling.
So which one of Jamwa's claims should the committee believe, the first or the second? And what evidence does he have to back his allegations?
In any court of law, Jamwa's turn-around would make him an unreliable witness and he would risk being charged with lying under oath.
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