By KT Reporter
Police constable Alex Katungi recently made news headlines after it took the president’s personal intervention to get him apprehended after hundreds of victims of his land grabbing, torture and extortion acts petitioned state house.
Katungi had always benefited from protection of big people inside the police force and private sector actors who deceptively had claimed to have close links to the president and first family members. This all turned to be kiwaani and Katungi was finally harvested. He had become so powerful, even as a mere constable, that the president had to use the state house anti-corruption unit to get him arrested.
The president had got his teams to verify hundreds of written complaints by victims of Katungi’s land grabbing, torture and extortion acts. Some of these were pregnant women who showed the president how they had had miscarriages as a result of torture by Katungi. Indeed, he was charged with assault at the Kajjansi magistrates court along with his senior AIP Kenneth Hadali.
The Kajjansi magistrate remanded them and later on released them on bail only to get rearrested. State house anti-corruption unit explained that they were rearrested on separate land grabbing charges whose victim was JB Mutebi whose land was forcefully taken by Katungi.
He accused him of donating to him land at Kibibi near Munyonyo of 30 decimals which he later lost when UNRA demolished his rentals for being in a road reserve. Katungi turned on Mutebi demanding that he refunds his 60m which he lost in the demolished structures. When Mutebi failed to raise the money, Katungi grabbed his other piece of land. Mutebi is one of the hundreds of victims whose cases moved Museveni to tears. SHACU says investigations are still ongoing adding that more charges will be slapped on Katungi.
He was re-arrested after his lawyer Mwesigwa Rukutana arranged and paid 5m for his as bail fees in the Kajjansi court. He had made himself very powerful through becoming a friend of his bosses in police and immediate supervisors in EPPU to some of whom he would even send daily money in millions through mobile money.
Museveni has since looked at the phone printouts and wants some of those superiors arrested by SHACU and made to explain what was the purpose of all that money Katungi kept sending them and from which source. Katungi’s arrest has created a lot of relief among Kajjansi area residents who had suffered his wrath for years. Many of them are in shock that their tormentor would finally face justice.
He would move around terrorizing property developers while accusing them of building in protected wetlands. You had to pay heavily to avoid being locked up by this constable from Ntungamo who was barely two years in the environmental protection police unit (EPPU). Those who couldn’t pay would be tortured and locked up at Kajjansi police station where superiors feared to question Katungi who over the years had cowed successive EPPU commandants such as Simon Peter Okoth, Kasirabo and later on CP Enock Abine.
HIS LIFE STORY:
Aged 47, Katungi hails from Ntungamo district’s Rushenyi county, Kayonza sub county, Kijubwe parish Mutuba village or cell. He also hangs out a lot at Rwentobo trading center along Kabale highway whenever he is upcountry in his Ntungamo cradle.
He one time casually rang DPP Jane Abodo who had spent Xmas recess in Lake Bunyonyi with her family suggesting that she stops over at Rwentobo on her way back to Kampala and take a bull goat from his farm.
Abodo, who is a very principled person and feeling Katungi was too junior to familiarize with her like that, declined the offer. Katungi, a social climber, didn’t give up. When Abodo gave birth, he offered to pass on a baby’s gift of USD2,000 which Justice Abodo still rejected. She rebuked him to stop it and that was the end. On another occasion, he tried to advise another female judge on the best hospital in Europe where she must deliver her babies from and the judge shut him up.
That he can freely offer to part with USD2K shows how wealthy Katungi, whose salary is barely 800k, had become through EPPU enforcement operations in the Kajjansi area. In his earlier years, he had also been involved in fake gold recovery operations targeting mainly Nigerians, Congolese conmen and sometimes Chinese who he would spy on during his regular evenings in the Kampala casino gambling houses.
These are for the very rich whose money spending status even the IGP can’t rival. But Katungi would go and chop money in the company of foreign investors especially Chinese and sometimes gold and cocaine dealers from Nigeria and DR Congo. Sometimes, huge Chinese investors especially those involved in gold deals would spend weeks lounging at Katungi’s home in the upscale Buziga. He began staying in Buziga after marrying into money when he began dating Mitooma-hailing tycoon Basiima’s daughter who unfortunately died three months into their relationship.
During the burial, PC Katungi grieved to the extent that the tycoon’s family feared he was going to die because of the devastation occasioned by his girlfriend’s death. On being convinced that Katungi was a diehard born again xtian, the Basiima family offered their daughter Sarah to become his new girlfriend. They wanted her to take care of him to be able to recover. Sarah is a nurse and very prayerful. Mzee Basiima was convinced only her would help nurse this broken soul towards emotional healing.
Things moved very fast especially after Sarah’s mum had bought in. Katungi had originally been renting near their home in Buziga in an apartment of 2.5m per month. It was suggested that he moves to a better apartment owned by the Basiima family. Mzee Basiima is a supplier to government, trades in electrical appliances in Kampala and has a huge block of apartments in Buziga. One of them was donated to Katungi to be able to live comfortably with their daughter Sarah.
Their wedding and Kuhingira were all rushed and took place in 2023. The giveaway was at Mulungu gardens and the wedding reception at Las Vegas along Kawuku-Gaba road in the late 2023. It was a huge ceremony which cost not less than 300m, according to one of the organizing committee members. It was easy for Katungi to pull it off because his best friends like SK Mbuga, Brian White and the Chinese friends weighed in and spearheaded the fundraising.
Mzee Basiima loves his children a lot and whoever clocks age of consent, he buys them a brand new TX. Sarah had one bought for her and it’s the powerful TX PC Katungi has always been cruising around. Many colleagues in police, including his immediate supervisors, got convinced that this TX had been bought for him by the president whereas not. This false impression made many big men in police to fear Katungi well assured he talks to the president directly whereas not.
At some point, one of the big men at Naguru police headquarters was made to think that Katungi had fuel cards which the president is supposed to have directed the state house comptroller to issue to him. It later turned out all this was kiwaani and the big man from Rwakitura didn’t even know of Katungi’s existence until when he learnt of his excesses which he directed SHACU to investigate.
An impression had also been created that Katungi was a longtime friend of Joviah Saleh and her sister Kellen Kayonga plus another lady called Auntie Mable. Katungi would call the trio auntie which deceived his superiors in police into thinking he was their close relative.
Katungi had also become a frequent traveler abroad ostensibly to investigate sham gold dealers transiting through Uganda and this too made his superiors at police headquarters to begin perceiving him as very powerful.
They suspected its state house which would be sending him on such errands abroad. SHACU investigations which were directed by the president himself have revealed that all this was false.
Katungi rarely puts on police uniform because through that foreign investors, who thought he was a very powerful man in the police and the country, would realize his lowly rank. As a high spender, he would also frequently hang out at Munyonyo Auto Spa whose owner Ssemwogerere was introduced to him by his friends like SK Mbuga and Brian White.
Besides Nurse Sarah to whom he is now legally married, Katungi has also been involved with other women before. These include an elderly depot operator in Bulenga who he used to date during those early years of working at RRU in Kireka. He would move from Bulenga to go hang around Kireka as an informer.
They dated long enough and sired a son who is currently in S5. He lives with Katungi at the Buziga home. He also engaged with a Mukiga lady after moving on from the one of Bulenga. The Mukiga lady worked with a microfinance company in Kampala and they got two children together. They later on parted ways and the Mukiga babe carried on with the two kids.
JOINING POLICE:
Alex Katungi first joined police in 2010 as a voluntary informer for the Kireka-based RRU. He was a mere operative who would give the commandant tips of information and sign a voucher for some facilitation and go away.
When Emmanuel Muhairwe headed RRU, Katungi befriended him a lot and it was him who aided him to land a formal police job and get his police number. Vacancies emerged for drivers to be recruited and he recommended him. Muhairwe had liked Katungi for his ability to befriend and penetrate criminal gangs very quickly and proceeding to extract sensitive information from them. This always made his work easy as the commandant RRU.
Katungi trained with others for two months after which he got the driver’s job. Only two weeks on the job, another opportunity came when the flying squad was created and officed at Kampala CPS. Later on RRU was disbanded and flying squad replaced it. Kireka became SIU.
As a flying squad operative, Katungi was tasked to handle investigations into a robbery that was reported by an Indian businessman in Kampala. They established Ugandan workers who had stolen the money and recovered 200m but which somehow disappeared. On failing to get back his money, the Indian made noise which resulted into Katungi and sergeant Nuwagaba getting sanctioned.
Lack of evidence to prosecute them forced the police leadership to simply transfer Katungi to Rwampara and later on Kanungu. However, he found a way of defying this transfer. He got the Rwampara DPC to allow him to be absent from the station, which allowed him to be in Kampala. Village life is something he couldn’t stand. Shortly after that, Charles Kataratambi the current director legal affairs in UPF, became the commandant flying squad.
After the Rwampara transfer, Katungi resurfaced working under SIU at Kireka where he got the commandant to allow him concentrate on probing foreign nationals from Nigeria and DRC who engage in illegal gold and cocaine trade. As he went about doing that, something came up at Equity bank. A big man in South Sudan government was fleeced when his billions were stolen by a syndicate involving staffers at the bank and the hacking incident had to be investigated. It turned out the hackers had been apprehended only to get released and aided to flee by some policemen after money exchanging hands.
The big Sudanese managed to meet the president and reported everything. Katungi and other investigators like Ali Kabanda, Solomon Nuwe and others got implicated. Museveni was so angry and demanded that Kataratambi who was heading SIU gets sanctioned for failing to supervise his SIU boys properly. At the instigation of the president, general Kayihura locked up some senior officers for weeks at Nsambya. Kataratambi, whose family is well known to the president, was to be disregarded and put on Katebe for almost 10 years.
When the dust settled, PC Katungi resurfaced again inside the Uganda police force. This time round, he was deployed at KMP south based in Katwe. The man, who originally stopped in P4, still insisted on investigating Nigerian and Congolese gold dealers based mostly in Kabalagala.
This was protested by ASP Kakamba who was the area RPC for KMP south. Kakamba demanded to know why a mere constable like Katungi would insist on daily deploying himself instead of being deployed through the police’s well known chain of command. When he didn’t get enough support from his superiors at Naguru, ASP Kakamba backed off and let Katungi be.
Within that same period, SSP Tushimye of CID headquarters faulted Katungi. Kibuli detectives investigating a robbery incident had complained that the police constable was interfering in their work, which angered Tushimye who instituted disciplinary proceedings against Katungi. At the conclusion of investigations, he was found culpable, convicted and given severe reprimand. This was around 2019 and the police disciplinary court decision constrained Katungi for some time.
He resurfaced towards the end of 2019 when then UPF HR Head Muhairwe deployed him at Katwe to work under the EPPU. This made him become part of the policemen whose work was to be supervised from the water ministry headquarters at Luzira. It was while working under EPPU that Katungi endeared himself to SP Simon Peter Okoth who the EPPU commandant. Kasirabo had just left that same job.
In 2022, Katungi was deployed to work under the EPPU branch at Natete police which enabled him deploy himself to do a lot of community surveillance to nab wetland encroachers on Lubijji and other protected areas. A one Muhindo was his supervisor at Natete and would clash with him on a daily basis for deploying himself on where to go every morning. Muhindo tried to fight him but gave up due to lack of support from Okoth who was the overall boss for EPPU.
In the end, Katungi, who had so much money and confidence to the extent of often taking his bosses out to places like Speke Resort Munyonyo for a drink, ended up being deployed at the Kajjansi police station where he ended up working as his own boss doing enforcement operations without having to be answerable to anyone.
That is how he was able to occasion so much mischief, beating up property developers and making them to kneel before him while crying before their children and wives the moment he considered them uncooperative. He simply turned up and declared your plot to be a wetland in which case you had to pay to buy back your freedom and peace. This is how his problems, which eventually reached the president, started.
At some point, officials at the water ministry which facilitates EPPU work complained about Katungi wielding too much power and committing acts of torture. This was after many tortured developers petitioned the ministry.
The police leadership decided to deploy a more senior person to oversee Katungi’s operations. That is how SP Hadijah was deployed to Kajjansi but Katungi immediately protested saying he wasn’t comfortable being supervised by such a person. He had actually vowed to cause Hadijah to be transferred away which later on happened only for the same to be reversed after higher authorities prevailed through CP Enock Abine.
When life became hard and Hadijah couldn’t stand Katungi’s hostile attitude anymore, she left the Kajjansi station and Katungi once again regained his freedom. This was later on protested when a powerful minister and some MPs on the defense & internal affairs committee, which supervises police, intervened.
They insisted that Katungi was too junior as a mere constable to handle the whole of Kajjansi without being supervised by a more senior person. That’s how AIP Kenneth Hadali, who was heading EPPU branch in Entebbe, was assigned the duty to oversee Kajjansi but he too has since been arrested by SHACU after it turned out he failed to effectively supervise Katungi, who was always a very feared man partly because he possessed two pistols one in his capacity as a policeman and the other licensed to him in his capacity like any other private citizen. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
