Uganda media outlet appeals against controversial damages ruling

KAMPALA: An independent Ugandan media house said Sunday it is appealing to the country’s Supreme Court against a controversial damages ruling for defaming a senior government official over a mega corruption case.

Court of Appeal judges last week ordered Monitor Publications to pay $120,000 in damages to Pius Bigirimana over a string of articles published from 2012 to 2015, believed to be the biggest such financial ruling against the media in Uganda.

The stories related to a corruption scandal which saw $40 million stolen from a project to rehabilitate northern Uganda after a bloody insurgency waged by the Lord´s Resistance Army (LRA) of fugitive warlord Joseph Kony against President Yoweri Museveni.

Lead appeal court judge Elizabeth Musoke said Thursday that the Monitor had portrayed Bigirimana, a permanent secretary in the prime minister’s office at the time the embezzlement became public, as “a corrupt, deceitful and untouchable civil servant”.

Bigirimana has never been charged and veteran leader Museveni has described him as a whistleblower in the case rather than a culprit. Another senior official, Godfrey Kazinda, was convicted in September 2021 of stealing $26.4 million donated by the governments of Denmark, Ireland and Sweden for the northern Uganda project and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The state also confiscated a million-dollar 20-room mansion from Kazinda, as well as four luxury sports cars and about $274,000 in cash. In a two-to-one ruling, the appeal court said Bigirimana was entitled to 450 million Ugandan shillings ($120,000) in compensatory and punitive damages, upholding a previous order by the high court.