They did so because we had only last week, ran a story where the judge had declared as invalid, the loans for which the auctioneers were now advertising Bitature’s properties for auction. The story titled; “Must Read Big Story: Tycoon Patrick Bitature Floors South African Loan Sharks in Fraudulent UDS30M Transaction,” ran in these pages on May 11^th 2022.

Justice Musa Ssekaana issued the ruling declaring the loan transactions to have been invalid. The judge observed that the South African-based Vantage Mezzanine Fund 11 Partnership, breached the law by issuing the purported loans without registering with the Ugandan relevant authorities first.

In light of the judgement, and upon reading the advert announcing the auction of the securities Bitature supposedly staked with  Vantage, Ugandans quickly reverted to ask which is which. They were right. In our quest for answers, the Temple of Justice came in handy. A summarized extraction out of the big ruling delivered by Justice Ssekaana had the ripostes clear.

The three paragraphed ruling bearing the names and signatures of the judge, unambiguously dismisses the loan transaction as having been invalid. It is therefore as obvious as night follows day that whatever else that sprang from the invalid transaction was also by that ruling, invalid to the letter. One even doesn’t need to be a PHD holder of law to figure out this gist. 

“The judgement is very clear. The lawyers of the moneylenders are simply posturing around, hence in the process, misleading their clients into believing that they are actually doing something to bring to life, the long dead case,” a senior lawyer opined. The legal mindwondered how the eminent firm of lawyers representing the losing party can go on and breach the court judgement, well aware that they are supposed to be officers of court themselves!

“Lawyers are supposed to help the court to meet the ends of justice. Following the issuance of a judgment or a ruling, lawyers would either advise the client to appeal, if they have good grounds of appeal, or to accept the judgement graciously.” He further clarifies that lawyers are not merchants of fortune as to misadvise clients to breach the law merely because they are seeking to earn money from them.

In the same breadth, Bitature, through his lawyers of Muwema and Company Advocates, last night issued a full statement regarding the moneylenders` auction attempt stance. Below is the statement in full… 

MR PATRICK BITATURE RESPONDS

PUBLIC NOTICE   

We act for M/s Simba Properties Investment Co. Ltd, the registered proprietor of Protea Hotel – Naguru SKyz, Elizabeth Royal Apartments and Moyo Close Apartments.

1. Our Client’s attention is drawn to a public auction advert issued by Quickway Auctioneers and Court Bailiffs appearing at Page 9 of the Monitor newspaper of today purporting to offer our client’s abovementioned properties for sale upon the instructions of M/s Kirunda & Wasige Advocates.

2. We wish to inform the general public that the said Advert has been issued without any legal basis. It is a malicious advert whose sole purpose is to alarm and cause irreparable damage to our client’s business and reputation.

3. In that regard, we state the correct position of the matter as follows: 

i) Our client’s properties are not liable to be advertised for sale by any mortgagee purported to be represented by Kirunda & Wasige Advocates and Quickway Auctioneers and Court Bailiffs.

ii) M/s Kirunda & Wasige Advocates used to act for Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership, in a long-standing Commercial dispute with our client which was decided against them recently.

iii) The above dispute was settled on the 9th May 2022 by Hon. Justice Musa Ssekana of the High Court when he declared in Misc. Cause No. 205 of 2021 Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership vs Simba Properties Investment Co. Ltd, that Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership is a non-existent legal entity which had no locus standi to file the suit. 

iv) A copy of the self-explanatory Court Order which must be respected by all persons is attached for ease of reference.

v) So, from the 9th May 2022, M/s Kirunda & Wasige Advocates ceased to have a client to act for and for that matter, they cannot claim to be instructed to take legal action of any form by or for the non-existent Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership.

vi) The action taken by Kirunda & Wasige Advocates and Quickway Auctioneers and Court Bailiffs tends to disabuse the binding judicial authority which nullifies any masquerade of legal existence by Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership when they unlawfully purport to resurrect it with legal personality rights, whereas not.

vii) The above misguided and unprofessional conduct by the said lawyers and auctioneers undermines the authority of the courts of law to adjudicate disputes between the parties and is also in blatant disregard and contempt of court orders.

viii) Our client has therefore instructed us to exorcise the ghost of the non-existent Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership by taking the appropriate compensatory legal action against its promoters, lawyers, Auctioneers and Monitor newspaper for the offensive publication.

ix) Our client’s well-wishers, business associates and the general public are informed and advised accordingly to ignore the impugned public notice.

Anyone who acts upon the falsehoods and misrepresentation in the impugned public notice does so at their grave risk and peril.

DATED at Kampala the 18th day of May, 2022.

____________________________

MUWEMA & CO. ADVOCATES

(COUNSEL FOR SIMBA PROPERTIES INVESTMENT CO. LTD)

The judge has been painstakingly dissecting the transaction. And he has at the end of the day, found the same to have been premised on fraud. And so, has declared it illegal and untenable. Ssekaana sits at the civil division of the High Court where, he serves as the boss. He practiced and taught law for years, before he was called to the bench. His judgments are regarded highly within the legal and judicial circles.

Uganda’s top firm of Muwema and Company advocates is the one which have been fighting to save Bitature’s string of properties. They have pulled off the laudable feat at the end of the day. This law firm has done such landmark cases previously. Those lawsuits have helped a great deal to rein in on banks and have saved businesses from being seized over fraudulent loans.  

For one example, the law firm is credited for having been the brain behind tycoon Ham Kiggundu’s landmark case. The lawsuit ended with the judge declaring the loan, which Kiggundu took from Diamond Trust Bank, to have been fraudulent. The judge made good remarks and observations which are a must read for the people transacting with the banks.

 As Bitature savors the victory, the South African loan sharks are, on the other hand, leaking their wounds. They have been pursuing the attachment of Bitature’s businesses, which plot, they have dismally lost. They lost the plot because it has been, and was as well, a fraudulent one from the word go.

In order to avoid detection, these loans sharks took cover under a vague thing known as Vantage Mezzanine Fund 11. This posture, as they are carrying out business outside South Africa. But first things first. We shall divulge later, how these loan sharks used their Vantage Fund to mislead Bitature into handing over his entire business empire to them!

Bitature is one of Uganda’s most hardworking tycoons. He has scrupulously built his empire from scrap. The empire now comprises of telecoms, energy, real estate, oil, and hotels, among others. Apart from business, Bitature wears many hats. He is the board chairman of many companies. Some of those companies include UMEME and UTAMU University. He is also a Consulate.

Bitature has been at pains of losing the hard-earned business empire above. This, following a loan he reportedly acquired from the South Africans in 2014. The loan sharks using one of Uganda’s renowned dodgy law firms, started off the foul game by tricking Bitature into writing a very dangerous agreement. 

Under such agreement, Bitature was convinced to surrender all his businesses for purposes of covering the fraudulent debt. Important to note, is the fact that many of the businesses Bitature used as securities to secure the loan, hadn’t agreed to the deal. They were merely dragged into the deal. And this, thanks to the trickery the loan sharks employed on Bitature, who, it would appear, required the loan as a matter of life and death.

Upon agreeing to hand over the businesses, the loan sharks made Bitature to write and sign transfer forms. This essentially meant, Bitature was kind of selling his properties to the money lenders. Yet he was simply taking a loan from them which he was supposed to pay back. This is how even loan sharks in Uganda operate! 

As would be expected, the South Africans would later on instruct their Ugandan lawyers to trot to the Uganda Business Registration Bureau (UBRS) and deceitfully demand that the transfer forms be altered in their favor! So keen on getting their unclean hands on Bitature’s properties they were, that they even hurriedly paid UGX1Bn fees to facilitate alternation of the same. Yet the same people had kept the deal away from the UBRS in the first instance. They did so in order to skip the mandatory legal process of registering in Uganda before doing business here. 

Operating as a partnership, they were legally enjoined to register with the UBRS. During this process, the South Africans would have been required to disclose their names and identities. But except in South Africa, they don’t operate like this elsewhere. They operate stealthily, to avoid rendering accountability in the event of committing fraud while doing business outside South Africa. They further engage in this kind of trickery in order to avoid paying relevant taxes to countries where they operate from.

The managers of URBS would prove too smart for the loan sharks to manipulate. They refused to change the ownership of the securities which Bitature had purportedly transferred in their names. The managers said they couldn’t do so because the transfer they were pursuing were a matter of contestation before Justice Boniface Wamala.

Much as Justice Ssekaana faulted URBS for pausing the alteration of the properties in absence of injunction order from court, the judge noted that the fact that the loan sharks had hidden the loan transaction from URBS, there was no way court could revisit the decision URBS took. Watch this space…

Today, we come with updates on the same where, Sudhir was ably identified as the owner and arrested before Bank of Uganda closed his Crane Forex Bureau located on Plot 20, Kampala Road. That his defunct Crane Bank was closed and operational license canceled, was not a new thing to Sudhir, for the same happened to his Crane Forex Bureau 30 years ago over fraud.

Authored by Yunusu Abbey, today’s follow-up story is extracted from The New Vision of Friday November 15^th 1991 under the headline; ‘Crane Forex Bureau chief under arrest.’ Sudhir’s unbecoming character did not only led to his arrest but also, to the Central Bank tightening the grip on the regulations governing forex. Below is the unedited story as reported three decades ago.        

The Story

The owner of Crane Forex Bureau in Kampala Mr. Sudhir Ruparelia has been arrested and his Bureau’s operation license cancelled because of the alleged malpractices. Mr. Sudhir was arrested late on Tuesday and is being held at Kampala Central Police Station (CPS). His Bureau situated on Plot 20 Kampala Road was closed yesterday.

By late evening yesterday, charges against Sudhir had not yet been established. A press statement issued by Bank of Uganda last evening said the license of Crane Forex Bureau had been revoked as a result of a number of malpractices which came to light recently. But the statement did not elaborate on the malpractices which were discovered in the Bureau’s operations.

[Stringent measures]

[Bank of Uganda statement] only assured the public that the forex bureaus will continue to operate in the country and urged everyone to transact business with Bureaus which have valid licenses in accordance with the provisions of the forex exchange (forex bureau) order of 1991.

In light of the alleged malpractices, the Central Bank has asked the public to ensure forex bureaus issue for every sale or purchase of the foreign currency EXSR, EXER, EXPR/TC or FXER/TC, “as the case may be prescribed in the second schedule,” said the statement.

Each forex bureau shall quote its forex exchange buying and selling rate which shall be prominently displayed in the premises of the forex bureau. Every Bureau will also have to display on its premises a notice informing its customers as they are entitled to be issued with a receipt for any purchase or sale of the foreign currency they have made.

The statement further said that the forex bureau shall in its transactions only engage in spot transactions and in particular, no officer or staff member of such a forex bureau shall be allowed to deposit or accept Uganda Shillings with intent to obtain or supply the foreign currency equivalent to, either wholly or in part, at a further date, deposit or accept the foreign currency with the intent of supplying local currency equivalent of it either wholly or in part at a future date.”  

The New Vision story goes on to reproduce in full, the Central Bank statement with stringent measures guiding forex bureau business in the country. These are stories, via dishing out money to Ugandan journalists and media hoses, Sudhir wouldn’t want in the public arena. The information about him on Wikipedia too, doesn’t capture Sudhir’s dark closet that we are introducing in these series. Below is what Sudhir and, or his handlers fed the internet about his past and lineage. We however take some of them with a tweak of salt…

Sudhir according to Wikipedia

Born on 17^th January 1956, Sudhir Ruparelia is an investor of Indian origin. He is the chairman and majority shareholder in the companies of the Ruparelia Group. His investments are mainly in the areas of banking, insurance, education, broadcasting, real estate, floriculture, hotels, and resorts.

According to Forbes, in 2019, Ruparelia was ‘the wealthiest individual’ in Uganda, with an estimated net worth of US$1.2 billion. On 20 October 2016, the Bank of Uganda, which regulates all banks in Uganda, took control of Crane Bank, the largest subsidiary of the Ruparelia Group, due to a significant decline in capital and potential run on the bank.

Ruparelia was born in Kabatoro, Kaseese District in the Western Region of Uganda to an [Indian Dalit] Gujarati family. His great-grandfather reached Mombasa, Kenya in 1897 from India and set up a trading store there before coming to Uganda in 1903. His grandfather was born in Uganda in 1908 and his father in 1932.

Ruparelia has two sisters and one brother. He attended Bat Valley Primary School in Kampala, from P1 to P6, then Jinja Main Street Primary School in Jinja for P7 and Jinja Secondary School. In 1971, he joined Kololo Senior Secondary School. Ruparelia fled to the United Kingdom with his parents in 1972 at the age of 16, when the dictator

Ruparelia returned to Uganda in 1985, [allegedly] with USD25, 000 earned from several casual jobs including working in supermarkets, factories, and butcheries. Ruparelia started selling beer and spirits imported from Kenya. In 1989, beer importation was banned to encourage local brewing of alcohol and he realized he could not make beer.

But since his customers, who were mainly foreigners, paid him in foreign currency, he started Crane Forex Bureau. With his profits, Ruparelia ventured into other businesses, including forming Crane Bank in 1995. Later, he organized his businesses under the umbrella of the Ruparelia Group. In 2007, Ruparelia was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in business, by the Uganda Pentecostal University, in recognition of his contribution to Uganda’s economic growth.

Coming up nest: How Sudhir imported bribes and corruption into Country Uganda… Watch this space