City businessman Suleiman Kabangala aka SK Mbuga has landed himself in hot soup over alleged fraud after reportedly pocketing millions of money that were meant to pay hackers employed by the government to hack into social media accounts belonging to Opposition party NUP members.
It has been reported that SK Mbuga, through his company Atrox Security Company, scooped a deal from the State House prior to and during the 2020 presidential elections to hack and or bring down Facebook, Twitter, Emails, YouTube and other social media platforms for NUP and other opposition politicians, with intent to sabotage their campaigns.
He thus mobilized a group of youth who are hackers and tasked them with the said job, for which he reportedly received a hefty sum of money.
However, instead of paying the hackers as promised, he decided to pocket the money, yet the hackers continued with their given task. He kept on promising that the money would come, asking them to keep working patiently.
But after working for a long time without seeing any money, the hackers decided to petition President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni through the State House, reminding him about their payment.
Led by Amanya Peter and Mugasho Lincoln, the hackers wrote a petition on October 13th, 2022 which was received by the State House on October 14th, 2022.
On receiving the petition, Sandra Ndyomugenyi, the Principal Private Secretary to the President, wrote a letter October 20th, 2022, in which she revealed that although the hackers had not been paid, the State House Comptroller had actually disbursed their money.
In the said letter, Ndyomugenyi also summoned Mbuga for a meeting at State House on Tuesday October 25th, 2022, on top of stopping the State House Comptroller from making any further payments on the same subject matter.
Although the details of the meeting are still scanty, we have since established that Mbuga was given matching orders to either pay the hackers as soon as possible or else face the wrath of the law.
However, leaving the Mbuga saga aside, the scandal brings to light the fact that the government has been and still is spying on Ugandans, especially members of NUP and other opposition politicians.
