Rejected In Uganda By Corruption Ties, Dictator Museveni Wants Kazibwe For AU’s Top Job

Kazibwe
 
Kazibwe–ordor of corruption
 
 
[Op-Ed Commentary]
 
The African Union is expected to name a successor to Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the executive chair of the AU commission at heads of state gathering in the Rwandan capital Kigali in July.
 
Candidates include Botswana’s foreign minister Dr. Pelonomi Venson- Moitoi and Equatorial Guinea’s foreign minister Agapito Mba Mokuy and Uganda’s own very controversial Dr. Specioza Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe.
 
She’s a surgeon, politician and a former Vice President of Uganda from 1994 to 2003 a position she was dropped from in a very mysterious circumstance.  
 
In Uganda, the name Wandira Kazibwe is synonymous with grand scale corruption;  so much so that she’s referred as the midwife of corruption. The scandals tagged on her head should morally and naturally disqualify her for vying for the prestigious position of the AU executive chair; this position needs characters with integrity which she totally lacks.
 
This is no secret in Uganda as many of the financial scandals she was tied too are well-documented by media. 
 
A few of the Kazibwe scandals forced Gen. Yoweri Museveni, the ruler of the last 30 years to institute a commission of inquiry.  As usual, it was a political gimmick from Gen. Museveni, to find a way out to shield her from prosecution. Therefore it’s not by default that most corrupt cabinet ministers of the Museveni administration get his nod to occupy top international positions. 
 
Sam Kutesa the minister of Foreign affairs was censored by the parliament of Uganda in the late 1990s for corruption and incidentally he was Museven’s choice for the coveted position of the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations a choice Ugandans home and abroad vehemently opposed. In the 1990s he was accused of stripping the assets of Uganda Airlines for the benefit of his private company, Entebbe Handling Services (Enhas). Uganda Airlines collapsed. When he became president of the General Assembly in 2014, it turns out that Enhas had won a UN contract in 2006 without Kutesa revealing his ownership stake. He had been foreign minister and would never had been awarded the contract. Records show that Enhas earned at least 100 Billion shillings ($30 million). 
 
Now Dr. Wandira Kazibwe who is also very close to Kutesa. Way back as a minister of agriculture she was found to have mismanaged a project to build valley dams in the cattle grazing regions of Uganda. It’s alleged the scandal was estimated to have cost Ugandan taxpayers 5 Billion shillings ($1.5 M) that she personally misappropriated in the valley dam project.
 
The other major scandal was the mismanagement of 60bn Uganda shillings ($17.5M) from Microfinance Support Centre in a record three months. Wandira Kazibwe was the board chairperson; she was subsequently suspended over allegations of abuse of office and mismanagement in the office she assumed in 2008.
 
Let me shed light on additional scandals: Uganda taxpayers were billed 2.5bn Uganda shillings ($750,000) to educate her in Harvard School of Medicine in the United States.
 
Now, another 3.5bn Uganda shillings ($1M) was allocated to promote her candidature for the AU post.
 
Her kind of management is very suspect. Her former subordinates said she lacked financial discipline at the Microfinance support centre and unethical in the way she managed the microfinance company. She actually managed the company like her personal shop and liked to direct things to be done her way in total contempt of policy and procedure.
 
Therefore Kazibwe, like Sam Kutesa who carried the baggage of corruption to the UN, is unsuitable for the high profile post.
 
Both these individuals have a tainted past in governance issue and thus they are an embarrassment to the continent compared to Madam Zuma’s stellar record. With the debate about the EU’s future, the AU has an opportunity to become one of the world’s pre-eminent organizations. Will African presidents risk it all? 
 
Ugandans have had enough of thieves representing them in international organs. Gen. Museveni is positioning them in these bodies to export graft and all sorts of malpractices.
 
Dr. Kazibwe doesn’t represent the interests of the citizens of Uganda. Africa deserves better.
 
Please sign petition to save the AU by blocking Kazibwe

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