KAMPALA: Bemanya Twebaze is finally out as Uganda Telecoms’s company administrator and in comes Ruth Sebatindira after she was announced today by court following a presidential directive for the company to get a new administrator.
It should be recalled that towards the end of June 2019, Investment Minister Hon. Evelyn Anite told members of Parliament that the government no longer had control of UTL Operations. She further informed the MPs that the government no longer has access to the company premises and thus can’t do any audits or understand how this company is currently run.
The company administrators, led by Bemanya Twebaze, denied all the accusations that the minister made insisting that they never refused any government official from accessing UTL premises nor did they deny them them the right to audit the company as was alleged.
Ms Anite quickly responded with a directive asking the Attoney General’s office to fire Mr Twebaze from the position of administrator of UTL, something that the AG instead blocked citing that “there are no grounds to remove the administrator of UTL from office”.
The back and forth letters that were exchanged proved to be a war of authority which would only be intervened by the President, under whose power all the ministers were appointed. In a letter dated 3rd July, addressed to Honourable Kahinda Otafire – the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, President Museveni asked that no action other than what was resolved by the Cabinet should be taken in regards to UTL. Fast forward to today when court has today entrusted Ruth Sebatindira as the new UTL administrator.
Who is Ruth Sebatindira ?
Ruth Sebatindira is a Senior Counsel and past President of the Uganda Law Society( ULS) from 2013 – 2016. She is a currently a Founding Partner at Ligomarc Advocates since 2003. At ULS, Ruth has built both legal expertise and business acumen out of her twenty three years’ experience in commercial litigation, corporate transactions and tax advisory assignments. Previously, her major areas of work included; corporate insolvency, company/shareholder disputes, lender enforcement actions and trademarks litigation.
Ruth’s current assignments include; tax litigation and tax advisory, energy and infrastructure projects contracts and negotiations and oil and gas agreements.
She is a Commissioner at the Judicial Service Commission which advises the President of Uganda on the appointment of Judges, exercises disciplinary control over Judicial officers and advises on the administration of Justice in Uganda. In this role, she focuses on improving access to justice and restoring judicial integrity.
Ruth Sebatindira has helped to set up the Women Lawyers Committee at the Uganda Law Society in 2011, and served as its first Chair. She is a regular speaker at women’s and leadership conferences and mentors young professionals. Ruth also speaks to children in schools about responsible leadership.
As Board Chair at Special Olympics Uganda, she works to end discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities through Olympic-type sports.
Ruth Sebatindira has an LLM from The University of Manchester, UK. She is a member of Uganda Law Society, East Africa Law Society, International Bar Association, International Fiscal Association and Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN).
