Makerere guild president and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) MAK Chapter strongman Kato Paul was a no show yesterday (Friday 2nd February, 2018) as the guild house was dissolved under protestations from the members of the Guild Representative Council (GRC) over unaccounted for money that the guild president is accussed of embezzling.
There has always been allegations from members of the GRC that the guild president, who is a signatory to the guild fund alongside the Finance Minister and the Dean of Students, was not allocating line ministers the money they had budgeted for activities and several guild projects have gone untouched including the yearly newsletter, The Makererean.
All this came to the public eye in the last GRC session where members demanded accountability for about shs. 84M that they accusse the guild president of embezzling. In a telephone interview, Martin Musiime the Mitchell hall GRC and Leader of Opposition in the house literally cried over the phone.
“Kato Paul has really let down the students’ fraternity. I feel depressed and static, my body doesnt move” he told our reporter.
Accordingly, all ministers’ budgets were cut and the guild president took away all their project money.
“We approved over shs. 4M for the minister of estates but she ended up getting only about shs. 300,000 that she bought in the few dustbins you’ve seen around campus. Where did the rest go?” Musiime wondered rhetorically.
Sources in Kato Paul’s circles imtimated to our reporter that the university system of money acquisition was changed and a mobile phone system introduced where the president was supposed to forward numbers of the guild cabinet and the money wired directly to their phones in order to increase transparency but alas.
The guild president instead forwarded numbers of his close associates that are not even members of the GRC or his cabinet. Logically, he was expected to forward numbers of for instance the vice president, speaker and prime minister.
In the latest quarter, a total of shs. 45M was released to the guild president through those forwarded numbers according to our source.
A guild minister who preferred anonymity confessed to our reporter that he carried out his projects on loans with hope of refunds but he is yet to see a penny.
“I went to a money lender and put my iPhone, T.V set and fridge as collateral security for a shs. 1.5M loan to fund the ministry’s activities on promise by the guild president that I would get the money in a week’s time. It is months now, I cannot recover my property and I havent even been repaid my money” he told our reporter.
Repeatedly we tried to contact Kato Paul on his known numbers but all our calls were ignored until he switched the phone off.
It is not the first time that allegations of embezzlement and corruption are popping a nose in MAK guild affairs but still there is no knowledge of any investigations into the matter and/or apprehension of the known culprits.
