By KT Reporter
Fred Emmanuel Mugunga for more than one year served as undersecretary, which is an equivalent of deputy permanent secretary, at the ministry of water & environment which supervises the environment protection police unit (EPPU) which is charged with protecting wetlands and the environment against degradation.
He is among those who suffered the wrath of now remanded notorious police constable Alex Katungi who the state house anti-corruption unit soldiers recently arrested and locked up on the orders of the president.
Museveni had got complaints from hundreds of victims who accused Katungi of torture, land grabbing, extortion and even corruption etc.
He was also accused of environmental degradation acts himself even when he was deployed as an environment police officer charged with protecting the very wetlands.
The president also got reports about some group builders, young men, who were deployed to build one of Katungi’s houses yet instead of paying them, the environment police constable would just beat them up each time they demanded for their payment. One of them, their team leader, was locked up and required to pay up to 200m to regain his freedom.
His arrest by the state house anti-corruption unit soldiers has emboldened many Katungi victims to become outspoken by stepping forward to report their torture experiences to the president. One of these is the undersecretary Emmanuel Mugunga.
The Shacu investigators, who have maintained open-ended investigations on Katungi to make sure his atrocities are fully investigated, have found Mugunga’s complaint uniquely interesting.
This is so because his experience shows how Katungi didn’t fear anyone anymore. It shows how he would cripple anyone anywhere as long as he felt like doing so.
As undersecretary at the ministry of water & environment, Mugunga had clear supervision powers over not just Katungi but the entire EPPU where he had been deployed as a policeman.
Mugunga also is the one who would approve facilitation and the whole operational budget for EPPU. Yet Katungi didn’t fear or have any respect for him.
His written complaint or statement shows that one afternoon Mugunga got a phone call from his driver seeking rescue. His driver had been arrested in Kitende where his work men were fencing off his plot of land.
Men calling themselves NEMA officials had stormed the site, arrested his workers and confiscated their tools. They accused them of constructing in a wetland.
Mugunga got out of his office to go and see how to help out. He wanted to understand the details and advise his jailed driver properly.
This was after he had been given a phone number of a one SP Hadijjah. She insisted that Mugunga, initially not knowing who he was, personally drives to Kajjansi police station where his driver and his workers had been held.
She told him on arrival that they had been found costructing in a wetland. He demanded to know whether technical officers from the ministry’s wetlands department and NEMA had been engaged to help the EPPU to establish and confirm this indeed was a wetland.
The law requires EPPU to rely on such technical guidance and its actually mandatory. Hadijjah shut him up with “we don’t get our operational SOPs from you.”
Hadijah placed a call and within no time, someone pulled up in a TX vehicle. It was Katungi who the undersecretary had only heard many terrible things about. “He jumped out of the vehicle and even left the engine running. He entered the office [at Kajjansi police station] and he was carrying a pistol on his waist, something he made sure everyone had to see.”
Hadijah introduced Mugunga to him as the undersecretary from the EPPU line ministry. Katungi was unbothered and replied with “I don’t care who he is and where he gets his orders from.”
He added “who is a mere undersecretary? Let him go ahead and make a statement.” Katungi rang someone at the ministry of water and environment to inquire if they had such a person.
The ministry person confirmed that Mr. Mugunga was authentic but Katungi still doubted and rang EPPU commandant his boss ACP Enock Abaine bragging to him how he had arrested the so-called undersecretary. The phone was in loud speaker which Abaine realised and asked Katungi to put it down.
On being notified how the man he had just arrested was a big boss at the ministry, Katungi without saying sorry, all of a sudden became friendly to Mugunga while advising him to make use of him personally next time if he had people who needed authorisation to construct in protected wetland areas. That he would help give them protection to construct without any trouble.
Mugunga says in his statement that on his way back to office after Abaine had prevailed on Katungi to release him, he made phone calls to the police bosses suggesting to them to recall Katungi back to headquarters for redeployment elsewhere but he was surprised when that never happened. It was theoretically indicated to him that he had been recalled but Katungi continued working from Kajjansi.
On another day, Katungi came to the ministry and entered Mugunga’s office. He asked him to link him with people who want to construct without disturbance “because that’s how he makes money.” That Katungi assured Mugunga he wasn’t here to protect Uganda or wetlands because he isn’t the one who created them.
He told him he doesn’t thrive on police salary but on doing special assignments for state house which was all falsehoods meant to scare the undersecretary into bowing before Katungi and worshipping him.
He deceptively bragged to him how he gets 8m per month from state house for his operations. He later on broke down crying in that same office and told Mugunga he was a good man only being framed by envious workmates like Hadijah and Byabagye.
Mugunga disputed this and told Katungi there are many complaints against him as a policeman and can’t be narrowed to those two workmates.
The undersecretary stated in his statement that: “He told me he is a killer and he will not hesitate to kill anyone who stands in his way of his survival. He also said he knows where my residence was and he wouldn’t hesitate to revenge on me if he wished so.”
The undersecretary says that he painfully remembered and reflected on these words when weeks later acts of arson happened at his home while he and his family members were away in the hospital.
He adds that many times he got complaints and tried to report Katungi to his bosses who never cracked the whip. Instead, Katungi would confront him with details of even whatsapp messages he would have previously sent reporting his mischievious conduct to his superiors.
Mugunga recalls how Katungi was in 2023 transfered from Kajjansi police station “but he refused to move.” Instead, he recalls Katungi one time personally transfering an assistant commissioner of police to Karamoja after he considered him hostile and even went around bragging about it.
On another occassion victims of his high-handedness reported Katungi to PSU and instead Katungi summoned to Kajjansi the police standards unit officer who had been assinged to investigate him.
It was at Kajjansi that Katungi’s PSU statement was recorded and the disciplinary matter was controversially closed days after. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
