Here’s Why Museveni Is Sure PSC’s Winnie Kabogoza Will Fix The Chaos at URBRA Once And For All

Uganda’s president Museveni recently recently tasked the public service commission chairperson, Winnie Kabogoza, to look into financial mismanagement allegations the internal auditors had unearthed against the disgraced URBRA/retirement benefits authority former executive director Martin Nsubuga.After that, Kabogoza is supposed to advise the president on the suitability of appointing Nsubuga anywhere else in a government job again.

In most cases, when Museveni wants someone in any big job anywhere in government, he writes to public service directing them to process so & so’s appointment instrument but in this case, he wants advice on the suitability. Knowledgeable state houses say that all this is evidence that Museveni isn’t interested in Nsubuga and only wants to use public service for justification to get rid of him.

Busy man Kiwanuka Kiryowa, the attorney general, was seperately tasked by Museveni to guide him on how some of the board members can be legally reappointed to carry on with their mandate. He had been given two weeks but he got busy but sources say that his report has finally been given to the president. Museveni is likely to have some of them stay around as part of the new board because they are his political cadres.

Once the board is in place, recruiting the new ED for urbra will be their first business and it’s very unlikely it will be Martin Nsubuga who has already been blacklisted by state house for defying the president by continuing to stay in the URBRA office even when he is not the ED anymore. No reasonable board would want someone like that to be hired to serve as MD again.

Meanwhile, the president and other stakeholders are hopeful that Kabogoza will be incorruptible as usual and will write a good report on financial mismanagement at URBRA during Martin Nsubuga’s time. She has a good track record to keep going by what she has done before.

Kabogoza in the past stood firm and refused to be manipulated by powerful forces and all this earned her the respect of state house. In the case of the Kampala ED recruitment, she defied a female minister who badly wanted her to favor Frank Rusa.

She also defied powerful people who wanted her to favor either Robert Kabushenga or Richard Byarugaba.

These had been powerful CEOs at new vision and at NSSF but Kabogoza stood firm and blocked Kabushenga because he didn’t have a master’s degree. This shocked many people but it was all Kabogoza saying no and refusing to be compromised.

Then came the ex-minister Sarah Kanyike saga. The president had wanted Kanyike to be made director of gender at KCCA where she had before that served as the deputy lord mayor. Kabogoza refused and assured the president that his candidate wasn’t qualified for the job.

The president backed off and gave Kanyike something else to serve as a senior advisor based at Kingdom hotel Kampala. This reputation of assertiveness and independence is what makes state house sure and very hopeful that even in the case of URBRA, Kabogoza will resist all the bribes plus manipulation and stick to doing the right thing.

Consensus is that UBRA which is a very important regulator of retirement benefits and pensions schemes, needs a new start so that all the mediocrity and the infighting there comes to an end-and the ball is in Winnie Kabogoza’s court.

Some of the commission members have been complaining of being sidelined from the URBRA investigations though