The mighty TV10GanoMazima has exclusively established that Commercial Law Giant Robert Kirunda, who is currently the agent to South African money lending company Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership secured the order ex-parte early this month.
Lawyers to embattled Kampala city businessman Patrick Bitature pitched camp at the door of the Principal Judge Dr. Flavian Zeija seeking for his intervention to stop the Criminal Division of the High Court order directing Buganda Road Magistrate Court to reinstate Private Criminal Prosecution charges against him and his wife Carol Bitature.
In 2022, Kirunda received the green light from Justice Stephen Mubiru the Head of the Commercial Division of the High Court who allowed Private Criminal Prosecution to be instituted against Bitature and his wife on allegations of fraud and his lawyer Fred Muwema who was seeking for a protection order from prosecution was slapped with costs for wasting courts time.
Kirunda proceeded and filed Private Criminal Prosecution against the accused persons at Buganda Road Court but the charges were dropped by the trial magistrate which forced him to appeal to the higher court seeking the reinstatement of the charges.
Highly placed sources at the Criminal Division of the High Court revealed TV10GanoMazima that Bitature leanrt about the development and also applied to join the application explaining that he is an affected person of the application and he was allowed.
However, he missed the date the application was called and Kirunda proceeded ex-parte and a ruling delivered in his favour. He immediately extracted the Court Order and served Buganda Road Court Chief Magistrate and he is now pursuing Criminal Summons to be issued against the accused persons.
By the time the mighty TV10GanoMazima left the Criminal Division of the High Court, Bitature’s lawyers were still struggling to get the audience of the Principal Judge to save their client from being prosecuted.
Counsel Kirunda alleges that the accused persons together with others still on the run with full knowledge and intent to defraud Vantage Capital and other 20 creditors, altered the shareholding of the Simba Companies, made false statements and conspired to defraud Vantage Capital.
He added that Bitature through his companies received a 10-million-dollar loan from Vantage Capital and offered their shares (him and wife Carol) in Linda Properties Limited, Elgon Terrace Limited, Simba Properties Investments Co. Limited and Simba Telecom Limited (Simba Companies) where they are shareholders.
However, in 2023, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s cabinet and Annet Anita Among’s parliament approved Bitature’s Shs 240.9 billion bailout after he proposed to government to have his Electromax power plant taken over in exchange for a bailout deal. The auditor general John Muwanga protested the deal claiming that it is a bad deal to the taxpayers.
