In December 2013, MofPED put out a bid for CEMAS (Computerized Education Management and Accounting System) implementation in all public universities (PUSATIs) and institutions (Proc Ref: MOFPED/FINMAP II/SUPP/13-14/00022). A company named TALISMA consultancy (http://www.taliscon.com/) won this bid. The total contract price was in the millions of US Dollars. This company failed to deliver success especially on the software requirements. Despite the handsome kickbacks from TALISMA to the CEMAS committee at MofPED, the consensus was clear that TALISMA could not deliver what the universities needed.
CEMAS Committee at MofPED started searching for a replacement of CEMAS after its failure in Mbarara University, Makerere University and MUBS. This search was headed by Godfrey Ssemugooma who is the Ag. Director/Financial Management Services. We will come back to this shortly.
Between 2006 and 2010, a group of telecommunication engineering students at Kyambogo University, as their final year project (2011), created a piece of software called “ekampus”. This was meant to automate university operations at Kyambogo University. These former students include: Joshua Muzaaya, Philemon Wenganga, Zziwa Shamusu, Hudson Kisitu and Katongole Joseph.
They had approached their lecturer, a one, John Okuonzi (Mechanical Engineer at the time), who would be the liaison between the students and the university management on the implementation/piloting of their project.
In the same year (2011), a few months after their graduation, some of the former students had come together from their various employments (some had been employed in MTN Uganda, and others in Civil Aviation Authority), and incorporated a company called Zeenode Limited.
Zeenode Ltd developed “Zeevarsity” and “Zeepay” software platforms. These products automate all university operations from admissions, enrollment, registration, students’ payments, results management, transcript printing and graduation etc. Zeevarsity and Zeepay platforms meet the full CEMAS requirements. Zeenode ltd got the following customers between 2014 to 2017: Uganda Martyrs University (formerly Nkozi), Ndejje University, Busitema University, Muteesa I Royal University and Nkumba University.
In 2018, under the NIISP project of Ministry of ICT and national guidance (MoICT), Zeenode ltd applied for a government grant. Zeenode Ltd won a grant and MoICT interested the company into implementing AIMS (Academic Information Management System) for all public universities. Having seen Zeenode ltd work in Mbarara university and Busitema University, which are public universities, Zeevarsity/AIMS stood a high chance on replacing CEMAS which had failed.
In 2017, after the evaluation of the Zeevarsity and Zeepay software platforms, Zeenode ltd was chosen to begin replacing CEMAS, with AIMS in all public universities. The then, Permanent Secretary/Secretary to the treasury (PSST) Keith Muhakanizi, wrote to all public universities, and to both MoICT and MoES, informing them that the government had decided to replace CEMAS with AIMS in all universities.
Zeenode Ltd had recruited 2 marketing persons. Henry Tumusiime and Okuonzi John, who are both, currently employed at Kyambogo university in the directorate of ICT. (More information about these 2 individuals will be revealed in our subsquent articles).
The Government of Uganda led by the MoICT&NG entered into contractual obligations with Zeenode Uganda Limited, under the National ICT Initiative Support Programme (NIISP) to upgrade the Zeevarsity System to the AIMS for use by PUSATIs. A 2-year contract between MoICT and Zeenode Ltd was signed on 18th Aug 2018, for the design, supply, and development of AIMS for all PUSATIs (Public universities and institutions), with all intellectual property rights, including the source code owned by Zeenode in “Zeevarsity” and “Zeepay”. This contract Ref: MOICT/SRVCS/2017-18/00138(f).
The terms of this contract were that each student would pay UGX 30,000/= per year. Kyambogo University was itself migrated away from Ekampus to AIMS (Zeevarsity and Zeepay) in 2018.
By end of year 2019, the Zeevarsity/AIMS system was fully operational in Makerere University, MUBS, Kyambogo university, Busitema University, Gulu University, Kabale University, Law Development Centre (LDC), Lira University, Muni University, Mbarara University, Soroti University, and the Uganda Management Institute (UMI). Other institutions were added in 2020, e.g., UICT (Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology), Nakawa Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) and Uganda National Meteorological Training Institute. In total, the number of active students of the AIMS platform significantly rose to about 115,700 students. The contract expired on June 30th 2021 and has not been renewed.
The fight
On Friday, 20 August 2021, Professor Eli Katunguka Rwakishaya took the press and accused 5 ex-staff of deleting data of graduands and thereby delaying the graduation of over 2900 students of Kyambogo University.
The 5 named ex-staff members are also former students of Kyambogo University who graduated in 2010 with degrees in telecommunications engineering and also directors of Zeenode Ltd.
As their final year project, they invented a University Management system which they named “E-Kampus”.
The aim of the system was to improve the ordinary student’s university experience. Before, a student had to move from office to office, stand in long ques and deal with a lot of paper work to complete all manner of University processes such as registration, examination permits, fees payment, graduation and others. The University was beset with loss and confusion of students’ academic and financial records was also rampant.
The pioneering E-Kampus system did away with all these problems.
The ex-students later built another system named ZEEVARSITY/AIMS which they deployed to initially support other Private Universities and later, Public Universities on Government contract.
In Universities like Mbarara where AIMS is used, graduates receive their transcripts on graduation day.
The ex-students have most recently used AIMS/ZEEVARSITY to help the Law Development Centre resolve the marks crisis there by quickly building student portals where all the students have now received their full and accurate marks. Going forward students at LDC will receive and track their individual marks in real time.
Ex-Kyambogo students claim Prof Katunguka is behind (ACMIS)
The ex-students insist that the new university management system that is purportedly being rolled by public universities is owned by Prof Katunguka. “There is a move championed by Professor Katunguka to replace AIMS with his own system ACMIS. This explains the new portal that is in Kyambogo University,” the ex-students say.
The media has over the last weeks extensively covered students’ complaints over this ACMIS portal including lost marks, altered marks, missing and messed up academic and financial records. This is the cause of the delayed graduation that Professor Katunguka has postponed for the umpteenth time.
Government is yet to officially take interest in the public outcry of the affected thousands of students.
The most important stakeholder in any University is supposed to be the students because management systems are meant to improve their University experience. However, the students whose portal is being changed have not been consulted or considered at all.
“The entire change process appears to be a boardroom decision of sweetheart deals, abuse of office, conflict of interest and personal profiteering of the Professors making the decision. Government which contracts AIMS/ZEEVARSITY has not sanctioned this change which affects over 150,000 students across almost all Universities in Uganda. Students’ user experience on AIMS/ZEEVARSITY via User Acceptance Tests showed that the students across all universities ranked it as working very well. Why change a thing that is working well and without involving the students?” Philemon Wenganga, the Team Leader of Zeenode Ltd (developers of AIMS) wondered.
“What should worry other Universities is that Professor Katunguka is working to lure and intimidate other universities to shift from AIMS to the new Portal in Kyambogo that has caused the delayed graduation in Kyambogo and messed up University records. The students of all the other universities have not been consulted. The crisis in Kyambogo now threatens to extend to Makerere University and Makerere University Business school where the students are off campus and therefore cannot to be heard in this mismanagement of change,” the youthful innovator added.
The other major problem with the new portal is that while Professor Katunguka has falsely claimed that the new portal is built by Kyambogo University, there is no record of any staff member participating in building it, the university funding it or let alone records of ACMIS being sanctioned by Kyu Senate.
No single university organ approved it or funded it. The ex-students insist that it is the work of Professor Katunguka and his cohorts targeting to take the government contract away from ZEEVARSITY/AIMS to his ACMIS.
“At the heart of the dispute are the billions of money that government is supposed to pay the ex-students. Professor Katuguka is determined to prize this money away from us (Zeenode Ltd) and take it for himself and his boardroom colleagues.” The ex-students who cannot access these boardrooms have cried out for Government to intervene on their side.
Kyambogo Armed Police Raid Ex-students’ offices
On 17 August 2021, Kyambogo University Police led by over ten (10) commando style armed policemen raided the ex-students’ offices with demands that they hand over all their computers without a Court Order.
Kyambogo University police sought to whisk the ex-students away to an un- known destination in the now notorious and dreaded police Van popularly known as “drone”.
It took the intervention of political leadership and the leadership of the Uganda Police Force including the fallen Major General Paul Lokech to save the students and their office data.
The ex-students insist that this act of armed terror and intimidation was orchestrated by professor Katunguka to shut AIMS/ZEEVARSITY down, detain the students and their computers so that they are incapacitated from providing ZEEVARSITY/AIMS to over 17 Universities and over 150,000 students who use it.
The aim, the ex-students say, was also to harvest their data so that his ACMIS has a headstart in prizing away their clients the other universities using AIMS/ZEEVARSITY. This move was however foiled after the ex-students made a distress alarm to the then Deputy IGP Maj Gen Paul Lokech. The fallen ‘Lion of Mogadishu’ intervened asked the armed police officers who had the complainant was and if they had a search warrant. Maj Gen Lokech, would just days later after this intervention, be pronounced dead.
When contacted for a comment, Prof Katunguka told this website that he wants the ex-students to handover the zeevarsity source code since it is property of Kyambogo University and that’s why they’re in court. In regards to ACMIS, he referred this website to Okuonzi. Our repeated calls to Okuonzi and Tumusiime were unanswered by press time.
Vice Chancellors of Public Universities meet to hatch plan to demonise AIMS and unanimously adopt ACMIS
Wenganga told this campus news website that Prof Katunguka, who happens to chair the Vice Chancellors Forum called a meeting to forge a way forward for universities management system. “Prof Katunguka among other things demonized AIMS in our absence. He claimed that the public universities data is not safe with a private company but AIMS is hosted by the National Data Centre at NITA-U,” Weganga revealed. Asked if AIMS has ever experienced any data breach, Wenganga said it has never happened.
Now, letters from vice chancellors in public universities to Zeenode Ltd, seen by Campus Bee show that what’s different are the headed papers. The contents in the letter, asking Zeenode Ltd to handover the universities data is the same. “The letter was written by Kyambogo and shared with different universities to change headed paper and dates. The sinister move is clear,” Wenganga told this Campus news website.
Who aims ACMIS?
According to the ex-students, ACMIS is a creation of John Okuonzi the current director of ICT at Kyambogo University and Henry Tumusiime, also a staff member of Kyambogo university. ACMIS is registered under Honeycomb Technologies Ltd. After a search at Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), this campus news website found out that Okuonzi and Tumusiime are part of the directors of Honeycomb Technologies that was incorporated in 2019.
How was ACMIS developed? the copyright infringement of AIMS and the court case….we reveal all this details in our next article of university dons stifling the growth of young innovators that they claim to nature. Stay tuned!
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