Action Time: President Museveni picks interest, quizzes junior judicial Clerk Ronald Luwangula over Simbamannyo deal

KAMPALA, Uganda: After the mighty Investigator broke the story of the Court Clerk who purportedly paid a whopping USD4M (Shillings twelve billion) for a luxury hotel in town, our ardent reader, the President has picked deep interest into the intriguing transaction.

President Museveni dived in after we also raised questions about the transaction which saw one Ronald Luwangula, a Supreme Court Clerk, allegedly buying the 3-Star Afrique Suites Hotel, while property magnate, Sudhir Ruparelia took Simbamannyo complex, a multi-billion property behind Central Police Station Kampala, in a mock auction staged by the Equity bank Uganda.

The two properties belonged to draughtsman Peter Kamya before they changed hands to the new ‘owners’ in a manner that is shrouded in mystery. Kamya is currently fighting in court to overturn the auction because there was an ongoing court case challenging the legality of the loans themselves, when the bank sold off the securities anyway.  

For instance, while the auction was supposed to take place on October 8^th 2020, Equity started receiving money from Sudhir a week before the exercise. We have evidence of Sudhir wiring a total of USD1M on October 1^st 2020 to the bank lawyers after which, the latter assured him their client would not sell Simbamannyo to anyone apart from him.

A total of USD700, 000 from Sudhir’s deposit was wired into Luwangula’s Account which we believe, was a bribe to help act as a proxy for the businessman as far as buying the hotel is concerned. A company, Luwaluwa Investments Limited, which was presented as dealing in online trading but whose actual certificate of registration shows it is a general trading company, later purportedly bought the hotel through Luwangula.

Luwangula is said to have bought the hotel using a loan he allegedly picked from the bank which was auctioning the property and using the hotel itself as the security! Tellingly, the land office not only removed caveats from the two properties which the owner had launched a month earlier on the same day of the auction, but also proceeded to hurriedly transfer them to the new owners before placing new caveats on them. 

Ever since we broke the controversial deal seeking to use it as a launching pad in our efforts to uncover many such deals under which Sudhir has ended up snapping prime properties in town, and without putting out info to the contrary, the wealthy businessman, known for using crude methods to silence the truth, has launched a vicious hacking campaign against this website, its staffers and associates. 

But many Ugandans welcomed our truth-telling and truth-seeking campaign. One person who saluted our campaign is none other than the President. Inspired by our bold campaign to fight fraudulent transactions, the President has now joined the fray by summoning Luwangula for quizzing, our informers at State House reveal.

The President, according to our sources, seeks to understand how and from where the junior court officer obtained the colossal sums of money which he allegedly used to pay for the hotel.

Upon receiving his guest for the first time in his life, our informers reveal, President Yoweri Museveni humorously probed, “Muzzukulu, teach me, when did you make the kind of money you used to pay for such a luxury hotel?” 

As the young man figured out how to respond, our informers continue, the president followed up on the question, “Forgive me young man, you see Muzzukulu, even me your Jajja doesn’t possess the kind of money you spent on buying that hotel”.

As Luwangula quavered, our informers add, the President told everyone around to leave possibly to give comfort to his guest to tell all he knows about these matters. We are working relentlessly to obtain details of this meet-up and we shall tell it all as soon as we finally obtain it. 

This is not the first time for the President to intervene in such fraudulent deals by Sudhir. We have reported already how he helped to throw Sudhir out of a property at Plot 8 Nakasero after Sudhir used what is believed to be a Title produced at Nasser Road to deprive Gulam Hussein, an Asian living in Canada, of the same. While the land office had registered Sudhir on the property using the disputed Title, the President directed the land office to undo the fraudulent registration and the businessman was deregistered thus.

Gulam Hussein, discovered his property had changed hands after selling the same to the immediate outgoing Attorney General William Byaruhanga and his business associate, Charlie Lubega. The owner had told his lawyers to transfer the property to the new owners when he discovered the fraud. Hussein immediately reported to the President who didn’t waste time throwing Sudhir out of the property. Museveni tasked then Police Chief, Gen Kale Kayihura to oversee the eviction of Sudhir.

Sudhir had rejected calls by the land office to pass on his Title for cancellation and indeed resorted to courts of law, but the President prevailed. A judge in town, Andrew Bashaija has since, and controversially so, upheld Sudhir’s Title which he did not produce in court moreover. 

Bashaija was later removed as head of the land division of the High Court. Hussein appealed and Sudhir has never gained re-entry into the property as per the presidential directives. In an interesting twist of events, the first person, Abdu Matovu, to allegedly own the property, ended up disappearing to this date. 

He pulled up the disappearance stunt immediately after the matter had reached the President. Analysts have it that someone sponsored the disappearance because he knew a lot of things which he was going to easily spill.

That missing person had allegedly sold and transferred the property to Davis Kakwenzire at USD550, 000, a renowned land grabber, who the President one time ordered to be arrested on a visit to Nateete to hear tales of land grabbing. 

Upon securing registration, Kakwenzire used the property to seek a loan from Crane Bank, owned by Sudhir. Shortly after, he lost interest in the same and looked for brokers to find him a buyer. He got Godfrey Kirumira, a renowned broker for Sudhir who took him to his boss and concluded the deal, paying USD850, 000 for the property.