KAMPALA – This week the Kampala District Land Board Chairperson David Balondemu was waylaid by undercover operatives at Entebbe airport and arrested like a fugitive on the run. The brutal arrest on arrival from Dubai was uncalled for since he was not exiting but returning home and as such
the arresting officers from the State House Anti Corruption Unit (SHACU) should have waited outside the airport before pouncing.
He was quickly driven off to Kampala at a break neck speed and detained at Jinja road police station on charges of forging medical documents which he used to secure bail at Buganda Road Court in an earlier case of obtaining money by false pretence and conspiracy. He is jointly charged alongside Hassan Segujja, a medical doctor who is still at large and could have been left out on purpose to turn him into a potential witness to pin Balondemu.
The tramped up charges against Balondemu began with an allegation that he had defrauded a Korean investor in a gold deal worth billions of shillings. The circumstances surrounding his arrest and arraignment at city hall court was an exercise in futility as the charges were later dismissed by court for want of prosecution.
Balondemu’s adversaries were not yet done.
He was again pushed to the wall not because he had done anything wrong but because his detractor wanted him out of the office of Kampala District Land Board. This time he was accused of having obtained US$553,000 from KG Unlimited LLC when he allegedly undertook to secure a contract for KG to supply agricultural drone sprayers and fertilizers on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries.
He was arrested and arraigned before Buganda Road court where he applied for bail while relying on the now impugned medical documents saying he was scheduled for surgery. It is said that when the documents were verified, the hospital denied having authored them and that
Balondemu had never been their patient. The medical documents dated June 2, 2023, and November 7, 2023 became contentious leading to fresh charges being slapped on Balondemu.
On Tuesday, Balondemu appeared before the Chief Magistrate court of Buganda road where three counts were read to him including forgery, uttering false documents and conspiracy to commit a felony. The Chief Magistrate heard that David Balondemu, Hassan Ssegujja and others still at large knowingly and fraudulently made a false document to wit a medical form. It is also alleged that Balondemu subsequently used the said information to mislead court into
granting him bail. This time the state put up a spirited fight and denied Balondemu a chance to enjoy temporary freedom even when he had spent four days under unlawful custody on orders of the State House Anti Corruption Unit. That notwithstanding, that is the nature of our criminal justice system, now an innocent Ugandan has to languish in prison until October 21, 2024.
In the past, many Ugandans have questioned the parameters within which the State House Anti-Corruption Unit operates and its limits for that matter. To the best of my recollection, the unit was created specifically to intervene in corruption related matters that were deemed too complex for the police and the Inspectorate of Government or were over looked or mismanaged. Their core mandate if I am not mistaken was to pick interest in matters where government resources would be stolen or misused by those supposed to superintend over them. This unit has since lost direction and is now being used to settle personal scores. For instance, where is corruption in a scenario where a Ugandan scams a foreigner living in or outside Uganda, what is SHACU’s role and expertise in persecuting suspects in a case of forgery? Besides having no legal mandate to act as they do, SHACU has usurped the powers of the Uganda Police and has taken over the office of the DPP which they bully into sanctioning files without a clear direction. It is such conduct that has made some of us to conclude that the unit is being used as a systematic web of witch-hunt against a section of Ugandans by the mafia network. I wish to add my voice that the activities of SHACU need to be audited as many of the cases commenced by that office have been lost or dismissed for one reason or another. It is in the public domain that Balondemu has previously complained that SHACU now headed by Maj Gen Henry Isoke has continuously trailed him with a view of extorting money and have also impounded his personal properties even when the bogus charges at both Buganda Road and City
hall were dismissed or discontinued.
At the time of his arrest at Entebbe, Balondemu did not have any pending cases arising out of any of the previous charges brought against him. It appears that the only recourse available to him if he still wants his freedom is to relinquish the position Chairman of Kampala District Land Board. Otherwise, his first term as chairman of the land Board will largely be spent in prison instead of working for the people of Kampala. Balondemu’s other mistake for which he is being persecuted is that when the bogus charges were dismissed, he filed a civil matter against the so called investors that he had allegedly defrauded together with the Attorney General. The suit is for malicious prosecution and is pending hearing at the High Court in Kampala where Balondemu has demanded for billions in compensation.
The outcome of that case which is largely expected to be decided in favour of Balondemu is likely to cost the tax payer a lot of money and to embarrass SHACU which commenced the witch hunt without doing proper home work. In one of those cases, the complainant did not even know or even refer to Balondemu and was not even willing to testify against an innocent man. Is it not only embarrassing but a public display of incompetence to arrest a man, detain him for
four days, cause the sanctioning of the file without justification, arraign him in court and fight hard to deny him bail over fictitious charges that no right thinking person would want to be associated with. How can a man in prison who appears in court to seek bail be charged with forgery of a document which was prepared while he was under incarceration in a prison?
Just like the Lawyers who represented accused for that particular bail application, Balondemu cannot be victimized for having forged a document and uttering the same. Important to note is that Balondemu did not say anything during the application and is not the one who presented the documents for use in his bail application.
It is my considered view that forgery if any should be imputed on the person who authored the medical document and not the one who benefited from it. Most importantly, the offence for which bail was granted was dismissed and has not been re instated. What now remains in court are tramped up charges only intended to arm twist and inconvenience Balondemu. When all is said and done, the saying goes, to every sad and unpleasant situation there is a positive side of it. Those persecuting an innocent man many think they are incapacitating him but could be giving him mileage should he wish to contest for political office in the coming Presidential and Parliamentary general elections
Ther author, Wadada Rogers is a commentator on political, legal and social issues. Wadroger @yahoo.ca
