‘DIRTY MONEY’: Besigye Explains How Nandala Mafabi Obtained "Dirty Money" From M7.

Former FDC leader, Dr Kizza Besigye has denied claims that he received Shs 300m from Nandala Mafabi meant for facilitation of the party’s campaign agents in the 2021 elections. 

“It is a lie that money was extended to me to keep for party agents,” a tearful Besigye narrated at a press conference in Kampala on Monday morning. 

“Hon. Nandala told me he was giving me the money because he was fearing the revenue authority,” he added.

 

“They were demanding money from his companies and if he placed it on his accounts, the authority (URA) would pounce on it and it would be difficult to recover it.”

Besigye’s remarks come after Mafabi told the party’s investigative committee that the National Executive Committee authorised him to borrow funds to run the Party activities.

In the process of looking for money, Nandala said he and his team approached Dr. Besigye to help them raise the money. 

Instead, Dr. Besigye asked them to prepare the budget which they did, but he never got back to them. 

“Mafabi and his team were upset by the way Dr. Besigye treated them whereas they had firmly stood with him in 2001-2020,” the committee report reads in part.

 

 

Commenting about the so-called dirty money, Nandala said he had mobilised the funds for party agents, but could not keep it himself because URA had always garnished his accounts during the period for elections.

The committee members stated that Mafabi had “demonstrated that the money used” was from legitimate sources. 

Kasangati 

Besigye told the media that upon being approached by Mafabi, he told the FDC Secretary General that, “my home was not secure. My home is always being surrounded and sometimes searched. I told him I could not keep the money with myself, but I would put it somewhere which we discussed would be safe.”

He added: “My first concern came with the arrival of the money. The money arrived at my home at 10 pm. Hon. Nandala rang me saying that, ‘The other thing we talked about is about to arrive.’ I asked him where the money was passing because there was a curfew at the time and people were not allowed to move. He told me not to worry and before long his driver alone handed me a big box of money.”

The former presidential candidate said after failing to “make progress with this Shs 300 million and after consulting with my colleagues on the problematic money, we had taken the decision to return it. However, there was the hullabaloo of elections going on.”

Besigye said he was in Rukungiri when received a call from Hon. Nandala that he wanted the money to use for agents. 

“That was the first time I heard of the story of the agents. Since I was away I told him that I could put it at my petrol station in Nsambya. When later followed up on the issue my manager in Nsambya told me that indeed the money had been taken and she had signed off on it.”

Reports that Nandala picked Shs 7bn from State House in the run-up to the 2021 elections had split the once formidable party and threatens its political fortunes in the 2026 polls.

Besigye today admitted that the “dirty money” has made FDC less functional and wept as he recalled dozens of opposition activists who have died in the ‘struggle’ to remove president Museveni from power. 

“A party functions through its organs. The National Executive Committee is now in shambles. Members within the committee have views that the leader of the party doesn’t want, therefore NEC will not sit,” said Besigye.

Besigye also said Nandala failed to use a committee of elders set up to investigate the dirty money to “absolve himself” of any wrongdoing. 

He further said the committee’s report which cleared Nandala’s name did not bother to look for facts but simply recycled statements recorded from different party leaders who were interviewed over the dirty money.

The committee was set up by party President Patrick Amuriat in November last year, after Besigye complained about Mr Nandala receiving funding from suspect sources as the party prepared for the general elections.

Besigye said he had received information directly from the State House about the funds.