Senior government technocrats in the oil and gas sector are up in arms against each other over a Chinese firm that signed a dubious deal to produce electricity yet in reality the firm plans to process fuel and other products, using crude oil from Bunyoro.

“The deal was signed under the pretext that the Chinese would use crude oil to produce electricity but in reality, they intend to produce petrol and other items,” says a source who adds that machinery has started arriving in the country for the construction the facility in Tororo. Works are expected to start in September.

It should be recalled that Uganda’s major oil refinery will be built on a 29 square kilometres near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along the eastern shores of Lake Albert. This will be close to Uganda’s largest oil fields in the Kaiso-Tonya area. The strategy is to build a refinery that meets the petroleum products needs of Uganda and its regional neighbours, with any remaining to be exported.

Two intake pipelines and one distribution pipeline, with a total construction bill of over US$200 million, are planned to bring crude to the refinery and distribute the finished products to a new terminal in Buloba on the western outskirts of Kampala.

The cost of the refinery is estimated to cost US3 billion to 4.3 billion, with 70 percent of that amount to be borrowed and the remaining 30 percent coming from shareholders.

In early April, 2019, Uganda signed an agreement with a consortium, including a subsidiary of America’s General Electric, to build and operate the refinery.

Members of the consortium are Albertine Graben Refinery Consortium (AGRC) include Nuovo Pignone International SRL, a General Electric subsidiary in Italy.

Others include YAATRA Africa and Lionworks Group Ltd both from Mauritius and Saipem Spa also from Italy.

Initial efforts to secure an investor for the refinery collapsed after talks with Russia’s RT Global Resources broke down.

However, the project framework agreement that was signed will “ensure development, design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance” of the planned 60,000-barrel-a-day refinery.

Uganda has proven crude oil reserves of 6.5 billion barrels, about 2.2 billion of which is recoverable.

But the start of production has been repeatedly delayed by disagreements with field operators UK’s Tullow Oil, China’s CNOOC and France’s Total over taxes and development strategy.

A lack of associated infrastructure such as a crude transportation pipeline and a refining facility have also hampered the start of production now planned for around 2023.

Uganda is aiming to both refine domestically and also export some of the crude via the pipeline through neighbouring Tanzania.

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Government has summoned operators of a UK airline to assist investigators understand how the private cargo came onboard with printed currency on a government-chartered plane.
About two months ago Bank of Uganda (BoU) chartered the UK-based KUENE +NAGEL Cargo plane to deliver a consignment of Uganda currency. The plane departed from Liege Airport in France and landed at Entebbe on April 27, 2019 in the morning.

But it was later discovered that on the same flight was cargo of private individuals, which has triggered suspicion of foul play that warranted investigation.
Eight government officials have so far been arrested by the State House Anticorruption Unit which has been joined by the police CID for a joint investigation against the BoU officials implicated in the suspected procurement scam.

On Wednesday last week, State House Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) and police arrested several BoU officials in charge of currency, procurement and security and officials from the Customs Department, airport police officers and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) staff.
Lt Col Edith Nakalema, the head of ACU, says investigation seeks to find out why the UK airline ended up carrying private cargo of different individuals and agencies.
“Our key point is why and how did it (airline) carry extra cargo and for who?” Lt Col Nakalema said.

Lt Col. Nakalema said the investigators are still interested to know how private cargo found its way on the same chartered flight with the government currency.

“We are informed that the plane did not carry people but we want to find out who cleared the cargo,” Lt Col Nakalema said.
She also assured the public that there was nothing dangerous to the country that was carried on the plane into the country.
“I am not seeing BoU free but they gave us a kick-start to investigate and we are discovering new things. We have not recovered any money and it was not our question because BoU received the 20 pallets expected but we are investigating how the extra five pallets came on board,” she said.

Lt Col Nakalema insisted the extra five pallets did not contain money but declined to explain the contents.
Initially, it had been alleged that the extra pallets contained an excess of Shs90b.
Lt Col Nakalema confirmed that some of the arrested officials were interrogated and released on police bond but others remained in custody.
“It is a wide investigation involving many people and many agencies coming on board. It will take us long to decide on who to take to court and when,” she said.

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A Kenyan pastor, Rev Vincent Mulwa, of Christ Pilgrim Restoration Centre, has come out to challenge the widely-held Christian doctrine that men that follow the faith should only marry one wife.

In an interview with Kenya’s Daily Nation, Mulwa said Africans bought the world views of European missionaries who brought Christianity into Africa and abandoned polygamy, a practice that was rife even among the people who lived during biblical times.

Mulwa said he wants Christian leaders to review teachings on monogamous marriages, claiming there is no verse in the Bible supporting it.

He says this is necessary to “save a generation of women who are ageing in church without husbands”.

Rev Mulwa added: “I have been in the ministry for 38 years, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ but now I have realised that we ministers of the gospel have lost our believers.”

“I have never seen anywhere in the Bible where prophets and preachers prayed for single ladies to get married. The Bible people were polygamous and everyone had a husband,” he says, adding that widows were allowed to become concubines,” he said.

He said polygamy was commonly practiced by many African traditional communities and the Jewish culture was also polygamous, adding that it only began to fade with the introduction of Christianity.

“As far as the Bible is concerned, the number of wives or concubines that one has does not matter and is not a standard of holiness. I have come out to tell Christians that we must preach the true gospel and allow our men in the church to marry as many wives as they want. Polygamy is not about men needing many wives but it’s about women needing husbands.”

According to the cleric, the Bible has only come out strongly to condemn adultery, which is taking another man’s wife.

The reverend argues that the fact that the missionaries, who mostly came from Rome, began to preach monogamy does not mean that this is what the Bible teaches.

“It is unfortunate for the Church that today, when our dear brothers and sisters attend theological schools, they are fed with so much gentile-tilted theology that upon graduation, they are well equipped to vigorously convince the world to buy into the Roman immigration of Christianity,”

He says Christianity is not an American or European culture. Rather, it is God’s way of reaching and dealing with humankind.

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