Uganda Mega Media Scandal Unearthed
Yoweri Museveni - Uganda's President
Uganda legislatures have unearthed a mega scandal in a publicity contract for four-month media campaign during the 2007 Commonwealth Summit. The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has discovered that that out of the 17 companies that submitted their bids, 16 were disqualified because they allegedly lacked ‘documents’. Saatchi and Saatchi and ‘won’ the contract during the preparations to host the summit in 2007.
The evaluation committee had recommended only Shs1.8 billion for Saatchi & Saatchi/Terp Group, but the company was paid Shs2.4bn to run the publicity event. “The contracts committee and the procurement unit have 48 hours to PAC why they inflated the price by as much as Shs600 million,” said PAC chair Mafabi Nandala. Also under question is to why the company, Saatchi and Saatchi and Terp Group, submitted empty bid boxes in order to meet the deadline and submitted its bid later. Terp Group, a firm owned by President Museveni’s son-in-law Odrek Rwabwogo teamed up with Saatchi & Saatchi, a firm owned by Mr. Patrick Quarcoo to run the Chogm media campaign. The procurement department has sought some time to enable it provide the technical explanation of the figures.
© 2010, Suleiman Mbatiah. All rights reserved. – Reproduction of Newstime Africa content on any other news medium without the prior consent or approval of the publishers is forbidden, and in direct contravention of International copyright laws. Violators will be pursued and prosecuted.
Samuel L. Bangura: 
Tarawali's: 
FREEDOM FOR MOROCCO: 
youins: 
Mo Sande: 
The facts that were laid before the Parliamentary committee suggest something else. That the Government modified the contract to cater for advertising in newspapers and on national TV that had originally nopt been p[provided for. The updated bill was also advertised in the national daily The New Vision.
What is even more shocking is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, commissioned Uganda Broadcasting Corporation to do a due diligence on the contract. It was found that while the Government of Uganda had paid Ushs2.1bn the contractors delivered Ushs 3.8bn in value.
It is a shame that the committee hid the report and did not include it.