Parliament in Uganda has approved the government’s supplementary schedule for an additional Shs280bn to cater for investment costs for the revival of Uganda Airlines.
Chaired by Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, the House adopted the Budget committee report to avail Shs280bn as development expenditure to Ministry of Works and Transport for the purpose of purchasing aircraft for the Uganda National Airlines Company Limited.
This comes after the planes’ manufacturer gave Uganda Airlines an ultimatum of up to end of March to clear costs of the first batch of the two Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft that are ready for delivery amounting to $41.5m (Over Shs153bn).
According to the Purchase Agreement, Bombardier may terminate the contract if the buyer (Uganda Airlines) is in default or breach of any payment obligation which continues for 14 days calendar days beyond the due date of such payment obligation.
The request was however not passed without a fight from opposition MPs who backed the minority report that highlighted controversies regarding the ownership of the Airlines. This comes after Works minister Ntege Azuba submitted wrong documents in regard to registration of Uganda Airlines before admitting that there were errors in the registration process.
As a safety measure, the MPs also adopted committee recommendation on transferring the ownership of Uganda Airlines to the Uganda Development Corporation which is the business arm of government as provided under the Uganda Development Corporation Act 2016.
Source: kampalapost.com
