By Our Reporter
NATIONAL
Parliament’s Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) has ordered city lawyer, Patrick Katabaazi Kiconco to pay all the Shs39Bn he obtained from National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) meant for compensating tea farmers in Western Uganda.
The flamboyant lawyer has been in the news since August 2023, when it emerged that he received the Shs39Bn from NAADs for purposes of compensating the Tea Nursery Operators who had taken government to court for failure to procure their seedlings but did not do so.
The leaked report also wants the lawyer to pay back the money within six months and face prosecution for the misappropriation of public funds.
“Lawyer Katabaazi should be prosecuted for failure to fully remit money meant for tea nursery bed operators. Mr. Katabaazi should pay all the amounts due to the beneficiaries within six months from the date of adoption of this report,” read in part report from Parliament’s Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE).
Parliament also warned Gov’t agencies from ever making payment to beneficiaries through lawyers in order to avoid such scenarios in future, “Going forward, Government should make all pending payments directly to the beneficiaries,” as noted in COSASE report
In August 2023, the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) summoned Patrick Kiconco Katabaazi, a partner with Pathways Advocates over failure to account for Shs39 billion meant for Kigezi region tea nursery bed operators.
This followed a meeting with the Executive Director of the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) Samuel Mugasi on Thursday, 10 August 2023.
The committee was scrutinising the report of the Auditor General on financial statements of NAADS for financial year 2021/2022.
Kiconco was expected to appear before the committee but delegated his colleague, Asiimwe Mugumya who was rejected by the committee.
According to the Auditor General’s report, NAADS advanced Shs39 billion to Pathways Advocates to compensate tea nursery operators who had sued government for failure to procure their seedlings.
Mugasi tabled evidence that the agricultural body advanced funds to Pathways Advocates in two installments of Shs27 billion and Shs12 billion.
