Hassan Bassajjabalaba wants to appear before Parliament next week. So does the Bank of Uganda. Yet the businessman is now being summoned by police to do exactly what his lawyers had asked him to be allowed to do.
The unusual turn in the long-running Shs140 billion dispute emerged on Wednesday when Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) ordered Bassajjabalaba to appear in person next Wednesday at 9 a.m. to answer questions about a guarantee reportedly issued by the Bank of Uganda to his Haba Group of Companies in 2017.
The committee’s decision followed a letter from Calvin Onyango of Magina Advocates, who asked that Bassajjabalaba be permitted to appear before the committee after receiving an invitation on Tuesday.
The lawyers argued that the matter is already before the courts and that the invitation gave their client little time to prepare.
But instead of accepting the request as sufficient, the committee issued fresh summons and directed police officers to serve them.
The paradox was not lost on COSASE Chairperson Muwada Nkunyingi.
“What is funny is that the Bank of Uganda requested to appear next week to address this same matter, and Hassan Bassajjabalaba is also requesting to appear on Wednesday next week,” Nkunyingi said.
A request to appear becomes a summons
The committee said its concern was not simply whether Bassajjabalaba intended to attend, but what it described as delays in his previous appearances before the committee.
Nkunyingi directed that the businessman be served with the fresh summons by police and appear personally in his capacity as chairman of Haba Group Ltd.
The order creates an unusual sequence: Bassajjabalaba’s lawyers sought an opportunity for him to appear, while COSASE responded by formally compelling him to appear.
The committee has not indicated that the summons changes the status of the court proceedings cited by his lawyers.
BoU called to explain the same Shs140bn
The committee has also summoned officials from the Bank of Uganda to provide information on the guarantee reportedly issued to Haba Group in 2017.
The hearings are expected to focus on how the guarantee was issued, the circumstances surrounding the transaction and the requirements attached to it.
That means the businessman and the central bank are being brought before the same parliamentary committee to provide explanations concerning the same financial matter.
Parliament, court and a guarantee under scrutiny
The case highlights the complicated overlap between parliamentary oversight and matters that are also subject to judicial proceedings.
COSASE is exercising Parliament’s oversight role over public institutions, while Bassajjabalaba’s lawyers have raised the existence of court proceedings as a reason for caution over his appearance.
The committee, however, has maintained that it requires answers on the Shs140 billion guarantee and has now fixed a specific date and time for Bassajjabalaba’s appearance.
For now, the central question before COSASE is not whether Bassajjabalaba will appear — both his lawyers and the committee say he should — but whether the businessman will answer Parliament’s questions under a voluntary invitation or under a summons served by police.
Next Wednesday’s hearing could therefore turn on a peculiar parliamentary contradiction: the man who asked to come is now being ordered to come.
