By KT Reporter
PC Alex Katungi, a blue eyed-boy for the environment protection police unit (EPPU) commandant Enock Abine, recently went on rampage and locked up a private property developer in the Kajjansi area who turned out to be a close relative of Under Secretary Dr. Emmanuel Freddie Mugunga who actually is his boss at the ministry of water and environment based in Luzira.
The developer was attacked by the gun-wielding PC Katungi as he went about inspecting construction works on a site located in an area which Katungi claimed was a wetland.
Katungi had months earlier been deployed in Kajjansi to head the environment protection unit enforcement operations in that police territory.
He quickly became very powerful as he went around demolishing people’s properties while locking up those he considered to be big haaded and uncooperative wetland encroachers.
When Katungi moved in and started making his extortionist demands while introducing himself as a staff of the water ministry under the environment protection division of the same ministry, the developer rang his relative Mugunga who afrerall is a big man there.
As undersecretary, Mugunga is only 2nd to the permanent secretary in clout and hierarchy. Mugunga made phone calls to inquire what was happening but Katungi, who is claimed to have links to the first family through Kellen Kayonga and a one Auntie Mable, ignored him.
He shut him up prompting Dr. Mugunga, who processes the unit’s facilitation and monthly operational logistics on behalf of the ministry, to directly ring Afande Abine, the EPPU commandant.
“I’m going to deal with that boy. Who is he by the way?” Mugunga protested to Abine after being told off and asked to shut up by Katungi in the confrontation they had on phone. Mugunga dispatched one of his office staff to go and rescue the relative who was being subdued by PC Alex Katungi.
The rescuer ended up being beaten and locked up along with the undersecretary’s relative he had come to rescue. That day Mugunga realised how powerful Katungi had become. And that he is the only policeman who can arrest alleged wetland encroachers in Kabalagala or Munyonyo, which isn’t his operational area, and lock them up at Kajjansi police station for as long as he likes. The ideal practice is suspects are locked up in the police stations nearest to scene of crime.
When the Mugunga pressure became too much and threatened to complicate the relationship between the water ministry and the Uganda police force, Enock Abine purpoted to have transferred PC Katungi from the fields of Lweza-Kajjansi back to the water ministry headquarters in Luzira.
Even after that, Katungi would theoretically be recorded to be doing work at the ministry headquarters yet in actual sense he continued conducting physical operations on the ground in Kajjansi.
There was pressure from powerful people living in Kajjansi who kept complaining about Katungi’s unbecoming conduct in the Kajjansi fields. His godfathers at Naguru provided cover by deploying SP Hadijah to be the senior person under whom Katungi was to operate as opposed to being totally recalled. It meant its SP Hadijah who would answer each time something went wrong now that PC Katungi Alex was no longer the overall boss for the Kajjansi wetlands territory.
The Afande who deputizes Abine insisted that Katungi gets totally recalled and a more senior person like SP Hadijah from Kisoro takes full charge. Katungi’s relationship with SP Hadijah was very bad. He daily quarreled with her inside their small environment unit office at Kajjansi police station.
They would shout vulgar words at each other and SP Hadijah often reversed Katungi’s enforcement-related decisions. They would also quarrel and clash in the field and one time it was feared they would shoot each other.
She always protested why Katungi personally arrests alleged encroachers from Kabalagala and Munyonyo and detain them in Kajjansi sometimes for weeks, as opposed to Kabalagala.
When she heard of Mugunga being a big man at Luzira, SP Hadijah determined to work with him since they now had a common enemy in Katungi. The duo seperately wrote letters complaining directly to the IGP but Katungi’s godfathers at Naguru intercepted all of them. Hadijah’s supporters got a powerful minister to directly protest to the IGP.
The minister and an MP demanded to know from the IGP why he would lead a force where a commandant like Enock Abine would defend a junior policeman like PC Katungi instead of siding with a senior officer like SP Hadijah; in case the two had a quarrel relating to their work in Kajjansi.
In her battles with Katungi, SP Hadijah also counted on the support of her husband who is the deputy RPC for Ssezibwa policing region based at Lugazi near Jinja.
At some point, Katungi’s godfathers at Naguru had maliciously transfered SP Hadijah to Kasangati but things soured for them when the ED NEMA Dr. Akankwatsa directly got involved and escalated the matter to director HR Gen Jessy Kamunanwire.
It was made clear that the matter was going to be escalated to the president and the pro-SP Hadijah minister was ready to spearhead all this. Bosses at Naguru feared risking the president’s wrath and the transfer was rescinded.
The EPPU commandant, who is very loyal to PC Katungi who sources suspect has a lot of negative information about him, was told that he had no powers to transfer a senior person like Hadijah without the consent of police headquarters simply because he wanted to appease the low-ranked but extremely wealthy and powerful Katungi, a police constable from Ntungamo’s Rwentobo town council along the highway to Kabale.
All this high level intervention by the pro-Hadijah minister meant bad news for PC Katungi who subsequently got arrested on the presidential directive before his battle with the Mugungas could be brought to its logical conclusion. He continues to rot in Luzira where the Kajjansi Grade I Magistrate recently remanded him on torfure charges. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
