Bosses take fat pay as UTL sinks

Kampala. For years, Libyans and other senior managers at Uganda Telecom (UTL), with the knowledge of ministry of Finance officials, paid themselves handsomely and enjoyed free water and electricity, schools fees for their children and housing allowances, Saturday Monitor can reveal.
Although the company managing director (MD), Mr Mark Shoebridge, blames thieving and other fraudulent practices by UTL employees alongside a mountain of debt that distressed the company, Saturday Monitor investigations, however, point to what sources and MPs have called “obscene pay” of the top bosses and a long spell of financial indiscipline.

For instance, UTL staff payroll for October 2016 shows that the top four managers – the MD, the Chief Finance Officer, the Chief Legal Officer, and Chief Commercial Officer – earn a combined salary of $95,583 (almost Shs400 million) per month.
The MD earns a gross salary of Shs121m per month, followed by the Chief Finance Officer, Mr James Wilde, who pockets Shs95.2m. Mr David Nambale, the Chief Legal Officer, takes Shs90.5m, and Mr Ameer Kamal Arif, the Chief Commercial Officer, walks away with Shs76.4m.
Like other employees, Mr Kamal, a Libyan national who earns a salary of almost Shs50 million per month, is also entitled to housing allowance of more than Shs11.9 million, acting allowance of 12.3million, schools fees of about Shs3m, water and electricity of Shs3m per month. However, it’s not clear whether school fees allowance is paid to the top managers per month or per term/semester.

Removing the lid
In an interview with Saturday Monitor, Mr Nandala Mafabi (FDC, Budadiri West), who blew the whistle on the alleged mismanagement and financial indiscipline at UTL, complained about “obscene salaries” and explained that “despite the UTL bleeding and being in a financial crisis, the telecom top managers have continued to pay themselves huge salaries and allowances on top of other benefits.”
Mr Mafabi on November 17 last year informed Parliament that the UTL chairman board of directors, Mr Stephen Kaboyo, had his allowance increased from a net of $1,500 (Shs5.1m) to a net of $5,000 (Shs17.2million) per month with effect from September 2016.
His fellow board member, Mr Moses Mwasa, remained at $1,000 (Shs3.5million) per month. This is on top of other allowances that they get.”

Realising that UTL was on its deathbed, the Libyans, who controlled 69 per cent stake in the company, pulled out, compelling the government to repossess the troubled company. The debt-stricken telecom where government owned 31 per cent stake, is now on the verge of collapse should government fail to invest or find a risk-taker, who is willing to inject in excess of $48m (more than Shs172.5b) into the company.
The salaries for the top four managers combined, is about a third of the total salary bill for the entire company of about 500 employees. These salaries, according to Mr Mafabi and members of the House Select Committee investigating what has now become a scandal, must be among the highest for such staff in any company in Uganda.
“These acts by UTL top management are further weighing on to fast-track UTL’s death.”

Although the company introduced some cost-cutting measures, including cutting down the number of expatriates from eight to two, the UTL board of directors and the top management continued to enjoy huge perks at the expense of the low-cadre staff. Besides, Mr Mafabi told Parliament that the mileage allowance that operational staff used to get for field work in the absence of company transport was recently removed in the name of cost cutting, including provision of tea in office.
Saturday Monitor understands that half of UTL’s fleet was also grounded in September 2016 and nearly half of the remaining fleet is currently down with various repair needs as a result of delayed servicing and repairs, a situation that has affected network maintenance which has led to increased network degradation.
“It is very clear cost-cutting