The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has sanctioned the arrest of Patrick Bagarukayo, one of the people named in the botched Local Council bicycle deal.
In a letter dated 22nd September a copy of which URN has seen, the Clerk to parliament, Aeneas Tandekwire is acknowledging to have received a directive from the Speaker to arrest Bagarukayo as a suspect in the case of embezzling funds.
Addressed to Erias Kasirabo, the Officer in Charge Parliamentary Police station, the letter warns that Bagarukayo may be contemplating running away, having snubbed Committee summons probing the purchase of the bicycles.
The Clerk to parliament is requesting Kasirabo to inform relevant colleagues in the force to immediately effect the arrest of Bagarukayo to answer the charges leveled against him and inform the Committee.
On Thursday, Igara West MP, Raphael Magyezi, who is the committee Vice chairperson ordered for Bagarukayo’s arrest after he failed to appear before the committee and ordered police to bring him to the committee at 10am on Friday. Today, the suspect failed to show up again and his phone numbers known to the committee are off.
Bagarukayo was scheduled to testify on Thursday but instead sent his lawyer, Mathias Ssekatawa to reschedule the meeting. When contacted on Thursday morning, Bagarukayo reportedly told the committee that he was 40kms outside Kampala but did not mention where he was coming from. But after he failed to show up at 3pm, his lawyer told MPs that his client was beyond Mbarara, almost 300 kms away.
The MPs want to know how Bagarukayo was involved in the bicycle deal and his links to Amman Industrial Tools and Equipment Ltd (Aitel), the company at the heart of the controversy. Aitel early this year received 1.7 million dollars from government to supply 70,000 bicycles meant for the lower local councilors. Parliament now says the money was released and spent but the bicycles were not delivered.
It is alleged that Bagarukayo through an Inter Account transfer, wired money from Aitel account to his personal account in Stanbic Bank. On 15th March 2011, US$ 240,000 was wired to his account and later another 50,000 US Dollars. The following day another 100,000 US Dollars was transferred to the same account, totaling to US$ 390,000.
On Friday morning, the local government committee of parliament has ordered Bank of Uganda to freeze the accounts of Aitel. The order came after it was discovered that Aitel expended the amounts hours after US$ 1.7 million was credited to an account held in Stanbic Bank.
