A woman in Kampala is under detention at the Central Police Station (CPS) in Kampala over fraud, impersonation, and obtaining money under false pretense. 

The suspect has been identified as Ritah Namalwa.

Deputy Kampala Metropolitan Police (KMP) Spokesperson Luke Owoyesigyire confirmed the arrest. However, Owoyesigyire added that Daniel Kabanda, an accomplice in the matter, is still on the run. 

According to the complainant, Bishop Musisi Kiwanuka Griva, Prayer Palace Church in Kibuye, between 2020 and 2024, Namalwa and Jed Daniel Kabanda, purporting to work with the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), obtained Shs 700 million from him on the grounds of providing him two TV licenses and all equipment to run the two TV stations in Uganda, whereas not. 

The complainant, the lead pastor for Prayer Palace Ministries and a director of Dumanis Broadcasting Services, a company that owns and runs Dunamis Radio, applied for a license on April 3, 2024, to operate a television broadcast as required under Section 23 of the UCC Act.

 
“By letter dated May 16, 2023, the then Ag. Executive Director Irene Kaggwa Ssewankambo authorized the commission to commence the licensing process for Dunamis Television. In the process, the complainant was introduced to one KABANDA JEDDY DANIEL as a telecommunication engineer attached and employed by the commission to supervise the payments and operational machinery for the applicant’s Television.   Namalwa Ritah (in custody), also wife to Kabanda Daniel Jed, introduced herself to the complainant as the PA to the former Executive Director. She, through that conversation, persuaded the complainant to send Shs 150,000,000 to her husband. As a requirement under the Uganda Communications (Fees and Fines) Amendment Regulations, 2020, and the Application Guidelines for TV Licenses, the commission issued several invoices to the complainant to pay the requisite fees. We have since established that all these invoices and corresponding receipts are fake and forged. In total, the compliant Bp. Grivas Musisi Kiwanuka has since paid all the said fogged invoices as required under the guidelines and regulations totaling to over Shs 700,000,000 (Seven Hundred Million Uganda shillings). All these amounts were paid through KABANDA JEDDY DANIEL and his wife Namalwa Rita, who at all times delivered the invoices and the corresponding receipts after payment. These figures exclude over Shs 250,000.00 (two hundred fifty million shillings) unaccounted for. However, the said individual Kabanda Jeddy Daniel has since disappeared and switched off his known contacts. This has frustrated our investigations to track the suspect, Kabanda,” says Musisi in his letter to the UCC. 

In response, the UCC corroborated Musisi’s fear. 

“…The Commission does not have any employee by the name Kabanda Eddy Daniel. All the documents that were attached to your letter, including the invoices and receipts that were purportedly issued to your clients by the Commission, are forgeries..,” reads the letter to Musisi’s lawyers at M/s Mike Baingana & Co. Advocates. The letter is dated September 9, 2024. 

It then hit Musisi that he had been defrauded, thus the search for Namalwa and Kabanda. 

By press time, Namalwa was still being detained at the CPS in Kampala as the hunt for Kabanda continues.