State House disowns Ndyomugyenyi’s letter regarding SK Mbuga’s state-hired hackers

Statehouse has Friday evening issued a statement to clarify that a letter written on 20th October 2022 by a junior staffer, Sandra Ndyomugyenyi, responding to a petition by a group of internet hackers claiming to have been hired by businessman SK Mbuga to carry out digital spying duties on behalf of President Yoweri Museveni was issued in error.

Statehouse says Ndyomugyenyi’s letter addressed to Sulaiman Kabangala Mbuga (aka SK Mbuga) ‘should be treated with the full contempt it deserves’ because its author ‘made an error of judgment’ and wrote it ‘without consulting her supervisors or establishing the true facts of the said allegation.’

The genesis of this miscommunication originates from a 13th October 2022 letter authored by Amanya Peter on behalf of internet hackers addressed to President Museveni complaining about nonpayment for work done for the state.

In the letter to the President, Amanya said they authored an ‘online reputation repair proposal’ to ‘clean Uganda’s reputation online pre and post-election period’ and it was submitted by SK Mbuga on their behalf.

According to the proposal, the internet hackers were entitled to 40% of the total budget and an annual service fee. This hasn’t been fulfilled hence the complaint.

“A lot of work was done to achieve the goals we set but to our disappointment, we have not received any funds for the services rendered,” Amanya said in the complaint letter.

Among the jobs they executed was hacking the Makerere University database during Guild elections, social media accounts of opposition political parties like National Unity Platform (NUP) and personalities like Bobi Wine.

“The team also gathered surveillance on who is funding NUP, what their strategies are, who are the people pulling the strings and any relevant information the state might need us to extract,” Amanya added.

He, however, said that they ‘are being held up due to lack of funding’

Amanya confessed that they are the team hacking a lot of anti-government people’s social media accounts.

“Some of the recent work was the one of Kakwenza Twitter account, but he was able to recover his accounts after three days because of lack of facilitation from the State to hack into his mobile phone and emails which would help us wipe him off the internet forever'” Amanya detailed.

In response, Ndyomugyeni wrote to SK Mbuga confirming receipt of the complaint letter from Amanya and the team.

She wrote: “The members complained that they handled top secret work for the government and were to be paid by you. They claim that you received part payment from the State House Comptroller and you have not remitted any shilling to them.”

“The purpose of the letter, is to request you to attend a meeting on 25th of October, 2022 at 12:00pm at our officers at State House, Legal Departments, Lower Annex, Nakasero to discuss these allegations,:

“By copy of this letter, the State House Comptroller is requested to halt any further payments to SK Mbuga until this matter has been resolved,” Ndyomugyenyi said in the letter she wrote on behalf of the Principal Private Secretary to the President.

However, State House has disowned Ndyomugyenyi and cautioned the general public to be mindful of letters purportedly written on behalf of Senior Members of State House staff.

State House encouraged members of the public to always report to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit when in doubt of such letters.