The Civil Division of the High Court has dismissed a case in which two men wanted fisheries ministry officials including state minister Hellen Adoa to pay them shillings 3.6 billion for illegally confiscating their fish.
Hassan Omari and Violet Adhiambo Ooko had also sued Capt. Musa Mugogo ((Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces Commandant of the Fisheries Protection Unit), Joyce Ikwaput Nyeko (former agriculture director of fisheries resources), Innocent Mugabi (fisheries inspector in the Directorate of Fisheries Resources, agriculture ministry), Attorney General and Uganda Revenue Authority, over the confiscated fish.
In a ruling dated October 11, 2024, Justice Musa Ssekaana dismissed the suit, saying the petitioners did not have evidence to show that the fish was not immature or was not from within Ugandan waters.
The judge also said the petitioners did not have any documents — fishing permits/licence — to support their claims of being authorised to deal in such huge volumes of fish worth shillings 2.5 billion.
“The plaintiffs were aware that the fish had been given out under a court process by the officers of the fisheries department upon a court order. This suit is dismissed with costs to the defendants,” he ruled.
Ssekaana observed that the suit was deliberately filed against the defendants who are agents of government (employees) or who were acting in the course of their employment in order to vex them.
“There was nothing personal about their conduct and indeed the said fish was disposed of in a manner provided by the Fish Act by way of the court order. The plaintiffs were trying to hit back at the defendants for impounding their consignment in the execution of their duties,” he noted.
The judge ruled that the plaintiffs did not show whether shillings 800 million was declared at the customs since the person who allegedly paid the money came from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to effect payment in Uganda.
“The whole story of payment for the consignment of goods (fish) at shillings 800 million is quite unbelievable and sounded like a movie and how it was kept in the four trucks in amounts of shillings 200 million per truck is quite incredible,” Ssekaana observed.
