State House staff given 14 days to vacate Okello House

Employees of State House who operate from Okello House have been given 14 days to vacate the premises because the storied building was mortgaged to the bank by its owner.

According to a notice published in Daily Monitor, the registered proprietor of the building is Moyo Hardware limited which is owned by Alex Okello.

The bank (Standard Chartered) wants to sell it to recover the money loaned to Okello.

Okello previously occupied the building before it was forcefully taken over by State House in the late 1990s over security concerns because it towered above State House Nakasero.

In the following years using the building as security, Okello borrowed billions from Standard Chartered bank to purchase buses under the Pioneer Easy buses.

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Later when it became apparent that the transport business will not work out he sold it off.

In February last year, State House admitted before parliament that it owed Okello Shs 1.2 billion in rent arrears stretching to 2012.

However, Lucy Nakyobe, the State House comptroller said then that they had not paid rent to the landlord as there was no valid tenancy agreement.

The tenancy agreement, she said, could not be renewed since the premises were a subject of a mortgage dispute between the lender (Standard Chartered Bank) and the borrower (Okello).