Museveni's Family Ownership Of Uganda

Examining the structure of effective political power in Uganda to day and explained; “Museveni appointed his wife, Mrs Janet Museveni, as Cabinet minister for Karamoja and MP for Ruhaama County; his brother, Gen. Salim Saleh, formerly a minister of state for micro finance, as Senior Presidential Advisor on defence, a job at the same rank as a cabinet minister; his brother-in-law, Sam Kuteesa, as minister of foreign affairs; his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, commander of the Special Forces, his daughter Natasha Karugire, Private Secretary to the president in charge of Household.
“Museveni has also appointed his nephew, Joseph Ekwau (son of his younger sister Violet Kajubiri), Private Secretary to the President in charge of Medical Services (HIV//AIDS); his sister Miriam Karugaba as Administrator at State House (she is semi-literate) and her husband (therefore  Museveni’s brother-in-law), Jimmy Karugaba, as Officer in Charge (OC) of the Accounts
Department at State House. Museveni has also appointed his sister-in-law, Jolly Sabune, Executive Director of Cotton Development Authority; his niece-in-law, Hope Nyakairu, Undersecretary for Administration and Finance at State House; his cousin Bright Rwamirama, State Minister for Animal Husbandry; his other cousin, Faith Katana Mirembe, Assistant Private Secretary in charge of Education and Social Services and Justus Karuhanga, Private Secretary to the President in charge of Legal Affairs who is a nephew to Mrs Museveni. 

Many observers say that increasing family influence in government has gone hand in hand with the informalisation of power. Thus, although formal authority is vested in official institutions, effective power is wielded by this informal clique of family and kin. The official structure presents a semblance of national ethno-regional and religious diversity to win the regime legitimacy. The informal but highly powerful structure of the closest of the president’s family and kin is the “real” government.” However, it still comes as a sensation to thousands of Ugandans who did not know, up to that point, the extent to which national power had been concentrated in the hands of one family, the Museveni family and that there was, in reality, no Uganda government in existence. Whoever thinks they work for a Uganda government is, in effect, working as a servant to the Museveni family. “Stanbic Bank belongs to the [First] family. They are paid 200million [Uganda shillings] per month as administration fees via an escrow account in [South Africa].” An escrow account is a kind of temporary account awaiting verification of goods and services.Sources at Stanbic Bank talk of cheques being signed to pay the Museveni family “administrative fees” even though they do not have supporting documentation to justify or explain the payment. The way the Museveni family is paid royalties, or rent, by escrow accounts for their ownership of the title deeds of the Stanbic Bank business name in Uganda (what was once the Uganda Commercial Bank, Uganda’s largest banking group) is the way it is paid for their ownership of other apparently South African or foreign-owned businesses in Uganda. These sources say that it is Stanbic Bank that is used to finance businesses like Roofings Ltd, Speke Resort Munyonyo, the J&M Hotel along the Kampala-Entebbe highway, businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba’s hotel and Kampala International University, all of which actually belong to the Museveni family. Information gathered by Radio Katwe shed astonishing light on the extent to which the Museveni family has taken control of Uganda. In 2002, some officials at the African Development Bank (ADB) headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia, and who had once held President Museveni in high esteem, were shocked to discover, after some investigation, that the money that built Garden City shopping complex in Kampala had been from a loan borrowed from the ADB. However, the ADB officials said that this loan was then used to appear to finance the construction of Garden City, and yet in reality the money that built Garden City had been looted from the Ugandan treasury and the ADB loan was used by the Museveni family to give the Garden City project the appearance of legitimacy. Employees working at Roofings Ltd., owned by Janet Museveni, openly tell their colleagues about how they have been forwarded to the company by State House and how it is owned by the Museveni family. The chairman of Stanbic Bank Uganda, Hannington Karuhanga, is not without coincidence a cousin to Janet Museveni. This ownership of Kampala International University is the reason (and there is no other reason) that explains why Hassan Basajjabalaba is repeatedly given bailouts by the Bank of Uganda on orders of President Yoweri Museveni. Sometimes, it almost appears that Museveni is forcing Basajjabalaba to take the money. Below is a list of the Museveni family and henchmen’s property in Uganda as compiled by the investigative team of Radio Katwe:
Akamwesi — Salim Saleh
Aya Hotel — Yoweri Museveni
J & M Hotel — Janet Museveni
Greenland Towers — Janet Museveni
Roofings Ltd — Janet Museveni
Sameer Dairy Corporation — Yoweri Museveni
Malaysia Furniture — Janet Museveni
Nakumatt complex — Yoweri Museveni
Cham Towers — Yoweri Museveni
Crested Towers — Yoweri Museveni
Imperial Royale Hotel — Yoweri Museveni
Imperial Resort Beach Hotel — Yoweri Museveni
Bidco factory — Yoweri Museveni
Umeme — Muhoozi Kainerugaba
Uganda Telecom — Muhoozi Kainerugaba
Entebbe International Airport — Yoweri Museveni
Orient Bank — Sam Kuteesa
Garden City — Yoweri Museveni
Airtel — Salim Saleh
Warid Telecom — Amelia Kyambadde
MTN Uganda — Yoweri Museveni
ARVs drug factory — Yoweri Museveni
Speke Resort Munyonyo — Yoweri Museveni

The investigating team of Radio Katwe, by April 2015, were not yet sure about the ownership of the Serena Kampala Hotel and the International Conference Centre. However, there was an arrangement that if the Aga Khan was to take over, or buy the former Nile Hotel (now Serena Hotel), then President Yoweri Museveni would own the Bujagali Dam Project and if the Aga Khan wished to own the Bujagali project, then the Serena Hotel would be owned by Museveni.The details of this are still under investigation. Never has greed been so naked, never have the national assets of Uganda been stripped so completely by a single family. The story of the looting of Uganda’s property and the attempt to take total and single-handed control of the Ugandan economy is an even more incredible story than Museveni’s guerrilla adventures. The revelations of how Uganda found itself in 2015 under the control of a single family, as reported by Radio Katwe certainly one of the biggest stories of the year.