Hotel owners in Kampala smiled to the banks with at least Shs9 billion from the government as advance bookings for the 2007 Chogm delegates who later never turned up, Parliament heard yesterday.

And the money paid for the "absentee" delegates might not be recovered after it emerged that the contracts the government signed with various hotel owners lacked a clause on refunds in case the delegates did not turn up.

The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which is conducting an inquest into expenditure on the summit, Mr Nandala Mafabi, said the Foreign Affairs Ministry is to blame.

"The government through Ministry of Foreign Affairs paid $4.5 million (about Shs9b) to ghost Chogm delegates and they must refund this money to the Consolidated Fund," he said.

"The Solicitor General, Billy Kainamura and Attorney General Khiddu Makubuya were part of the conspiracy in which faulty contracts were approved through unclear circumstances and they must also be held responsible for the loss," added the opposition legislator.

Details of the faulty deals came to the fore yesterday as MPs met a team of officials from the Foreign Affairs ministry led by Permanent Secretary James Mugume, who, however, placed blame for the anomalies on the cabinet sub-committee chaired by Vice President Gilbert Bukenya.

Asked why hotels were advanced up to Shs23 billion without guarantees, Mr Mugume said: "This was not my idea. It was a decision taken by the cabinet sub-committee on July 27, 2007 and I have the minutes to prove that they waived the guarantee requirement."

But MPs Tom Kazibwe (Ntenjeru South), Theodore Ssekikubo (Lwemiyaga) Abdu Katuntu (Bugweri) and Oduman Okello (Bukedea) faulted Mr Mugume for failure to put cabinet instructions in writing.

"The law doesn't allow you (Mugume) to take instructions from a cabinet sub-committee and you should be held responsible," Mr Kazibwe said.

Mr Mugume responded: "Unless cabinet denies these minutes, there is no way you should hold me responsible because I was implementing their instruction."

According to the Auditor General's findings, ahead of the Chogm summit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent more than Shs23.4 billion on six hotels for hire of conference facilities and advance booking for accommodation of delegates without guarantees.

It was also not clear why advance payments were made for hotel rooms which were to accommodate the delegates. Under normal circumstances delegates should have made their own booking and payments to guard against the risk of non-attendance or being present for a few days.

Hotels mentioned

Some of the hotels in spotlight include Imperial Royal Hotel which received Shs6.8 billion but its rooms were reportedly not ready by the time of the summit.

The committee heard that although Imperial Royale Hotel undertook to collect all the money and payments (about Shs3b) made by the guests and remit it to the Chogm revenue account, this was not done.

For other hotels such as Africana, Sheraton, Imperial Botanical, Golf Course and J&M Hotel among others, some guests turned up but never used the booked rooms, on which the government had already spent the Shs9b.

The committee instructed CID boss Edward Ochom to investigate the circumstances under which Prof. Makubuya, Mr Kainamura and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials endorsed contracts without guarantees.