How diaspora Ugandans get conned by their local kin through ghost projects

 Photo: Courtesy

We have said bye to the last of the ba-summer. For the uninitiated readers, ba-summer are Ugandans working abroad who come home for Christmas holidays, and spend a month or two before returning to cold Europe and America.

Unfortunately, some of them will not be visiting the country anytime soon. And no, it is not that they are so old to manage another journey back here. On the contrary, those who have vowed not to return here are quite young. They are just too disappointed and don’t want to hear the name Uganda again.

This strong patriphobia has been injected in them by close relatives and friends, who have robbed them of money that they have been saving and remitting back home for funding certain projects, mostly housing.

But when they came to see the progress for themselves on the ground, they were shocked to find that there was very little or nothing at all to show for the colossal sums of money they have been sending.

Even modern technology cannot stop a rotten brother or cousin from conning you continuously if you are not in the country. Poor fellows starve themselves out there and send money for land to be bought for them. They are sent scanned copies of fake title deeds bearing their names and they feel happy. They send money for plans to be drawn and the most beautiful designs are sent to them. And then the long construction journey starts. Photographs of construction works are sent. Excavation, foundation, all stages. If you want a video as a site is being inspected it is also sent. Even a live tour can be done using skype and you suggest adjustments to the kitchen or the bathroom.

Except of course that the building you are inspecting from across Atlantic or Mediterranean belongs to someone else, in a part of town very different from the one you were told your plot is.

Ghost projects

The demands for money increase as the work nears completion. You are informed that the finishing touches cost more money. But you are encouraged when they tell you that there are prospective tenants who want to pay good money in rent for about a year, which means recouping some of the money you have been sending to Kampala without fail. The idea of earning money in Uganda to be sent to you abroad suddenly looks very appealing, and you the send the ‘finishings’ cash willingly.

Finally the time to step into your own house comes. Thousands of metres in the skies, you feel the pilot is not flying the plane fast enough to Entebbe. When you are here finally, you want to be taken to the magnificent mansion right away. If the thieving brother is the one who picks you at the airport, he probably tells you to take it easy as there are some small problems that he will explain later.

In due course, he tells you how there were problems with the plot and it was repossessed after it was discovered the seller was a conman. That is the gentler way of breaking the news of there being neither house nor plot, but ghost projects. The faster way is for the brother to go into hiding, switch off his phone and monitor until you return to wherever you came from. As it dawns on you that you have been robbed by a trusted brother, you start hearing stories of less fortunate victims who were murdered by such relatives a few minutes after leaving the airport before they could find out their brothers’ crimes.

You are also told of a lady who jumped off a tall building on realising that all the sweat of her toil abroad was stolen by her brother. After assessing the situation, you board the plane back, vowing never to return. There are many ba-summer in that situation who will not be returning to Uganda anytime soon.